


Tutelage

by cruisedirector



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Absent Parents, Alternate Canon, Ancient History, Bathroom Sex, Blindfolds, Blood, Bonfires, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Books, Chess, Christmas, Christmas Presents, Consensual Kink, Crushes, Dark Magic, Detention, Drama, England (Country), Felix Felicis, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Fucking, Historical References, Hogwarts, Holidays, House Elves, Intimacy, Kissing Lessons, Legilimency, Light Bondage, Love, Lust Potion/Spell, M/M, Magic, Magical Artifacts, Making Love, Malfoy Manor, Manipulative Dumbledore, Marauders' Era, Masturbation, Muggles, Occlumency, Potions, Resurrection, Rimming, Rituals, Sacrifice, Secrets, Sensual Play, Sensuality, Sex Magic, Sharing a Bed, Slytherin England, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Strength, Teaching, Theatre, Thestrals, Underwater Sex, Voyeurism, mummers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-16
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:21:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius Malfoy gives Severus Snape an education in what it means to be a Slytherin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Transgression

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LdyBastet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LdyBastet/gifts).



> When I first wrote this pairing, I assumed that the characters were several years closer in age than they are. If you read it assuming the canonical ages of the characters, one of them is much too young, so please assume instead that there was a Time-Turner involved. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter, though this version of magical Wiltshire is my responsibility. For ldybastet, greatly influenced by her and entirely her fault; also betaed by her, though any remaining grammatical or canonical errors are my fault. Thanks to istalksnape for additional beta work.

He shouldn't be seeing this, Severus knows at once. He shouldn't be in here. The man in the bath is not only a Prefect but Head Boy, a Pureblood, one of the most popular Slytherin students. And what he is doing is something no one else should witness...it is wrong, very wrong, that Severus should be here, yet he cannot tear his eyes away.

Lucius Malfoy has one leg thrown over the side of the vast tub. His long blond hair is draped outside the tub as well, still dry, falling in sleek waves that bob up and down as he moves. His back is arched, lifting him above the water, with one hand holding the side of the tub to keep himself afloat.

His other hand is on his prick. Moving. Stroking. His prick is enormous, swollen and shockingly purple against his pale skin. His head is tilted back, lips parted, eyes closed. Severus has never thought before about whether or not a man could be beautiful -- "beautiful" is a word applied to girls like Narcissa Black, who shares Lucius' pale hair, though Snape has never really understood what makes one girl considered prettier or more popular than another. But Lucius, he has no doubt, is beautiful. The firm rippling muscles in his arms and chest as his hand moves, the sharpness of his jawbone, the fine curling hairs in a patch between rosy nipples that look as though they've been pinched...

Lucius lets out a soft groan, flexing the toes of the foot dangling free from the tub, and Severus must bite his lip to keep from whimpering as well. His own prick is stiffening, and though it is smaller than Lucius' he tugs at his robes to better cover himself. He is sweating in the warm bathroom, feeling his hair cling damply to his face and forehead. He knows he must look like the greasy git those Gryffindor boys tell him that he is -- boys like Sirius Black who is Narcissa's cousin and also, perhaps, beautiful, though not like the man in the bathtub.

For Lucius is unquestionably a man, not a boy. There is nothing uncertain in the way he touches himself, none of the curiosity or shame that accompanies Severus when he furtively slides a hand inside his waistband in the solitude of his bed with the curtains shut. Lucius seems to be enjoying not only the rhythm of his fingers but the fact that he can do this for himself, give himself this satisfaction. For a moment Severus tries to imagine it, being so pleased with his body that he could expose it in this way, before he remembers that the bathroom was supposed to be locked and he opened the door with a spell he'd made up himself, just to see if it would work. The man in the tub believes himself to be alone, without possibility of interruption.

He should go, but the magnitude of the transgression only makes him want to stay even more. This is not Lucius showing off his body for some imagined admirer; this is how Lucius pleasures himself in complete privacy, when he can dare to rub a finger in a place Severus has never had the courage to touch, thinking surely people will know if he does so because it's so dirty, surely they will sense it...

Lucius mutters something and then he is floating without needing his hands to support him. Now he can use both of them on himself, and Severus is even more shocked when he withdraws the finger and licks it, sucks it into his mouth, then puts it right back where it had been dirtying itself before. Lucius' breathing has grown louder, ragged, with more frequent moans. Severus knows what is supposed to happen soon though he has never seen it: there were descriptions, in the horrid book they all had to read about how babies are made, and he has heard whispers from the older boys about things they had convinced the girls to do, with their hands or if they were very lucky with their mouths. Severus has always thought it sounded filthy and repulsive, but this...

With another groan Lucius arches nearly out of the tub, face contorting and going rigid, but Severus can scarcely spare it a glance. His eyes roam hungrily to Lucius' prick, which is even more swollen, looking as if it might burst. And then it does: white streaks spurt through the air and onto Lucius' belly as he cries out hoarsely. Severus feels as though his own groin may explode but he does not dare touch it, for if he does he is certain that he will scream.

With a loud sigh Lucius settles back into the water, sliding his hands up the mess on his belly and washing it away. For a moment Severus thinks that he might escape unscathed and he begins to withdraw, but just then Lucius' eyes open lazily and widen in astonishment to see him standing there. Severus knows how he must look, with his shoulders hunched to keep his robes covering him completely and his hair stuck to his face; he freezes in terror, unable even to begin to formulate an apology, let alone an explanation.

"Were you watching me?" asks Lucius in a low, accusing voice.

There is no hope that Severus can lie. Blushing scarlet, he nods, waiting for Lucius to fly into a temper or, worse, to inform him coldly that his intrusive behavior will be reported to the Headmaster. He believes nothing could be worse than that, to have to stand before Dumbledore while Lucius explains that he is a filthy little spy, yet when Lucius gives him a small, secretive smile, it is even more terrifying.

What will Lucius ask him to do? Will he promise not to tell if Severus...? His hands begin to shake as he tries to guess at the possibilities -- Lucius asking him to touch him, or to get in the tub and do the same, things he is not ready for, things his mind can scarcely imagine before being overwhelmed by the urge to beg for mercy. "Please," he whispers.

Shaking out his hair, Lucius sits upright in the tub, cocking an elegant eyebrow. "Please what?" And in the silence, "Why are you trembling? Didn't you like watching me?"

"I did," admits Severus, almost a sob. He glances at Lucius, expecting to see fury on his face, and cannot understand why the man instead continues to give him that mysterious little grin. Perhaps all he wants is a full confession. "I -- I was testing out a spell, I didn't know anyone was here, and I came in, and I...saw you."

"And you watched." Lucius' eyes narrow, appraising him. "What's your name?"

"S-Severus-s-s-Snape."

"Oh, that's right. You're a Slytherin." The words are spoken with something very like approval. "Well, now we have a secret, Severus, don't we." This sounds like a threat, and Severus holds his breath, but Lucius only smiles again. "Now dry yourself off, and go back to your dormitory, and do whatever is necessary to calm yourself. Remember: our secret."

Settling back, Lucius makes the soap fly into his hand without even speaking a charm, and Severus understands that he has been dismissed...he has been reprieved. With a stuttered "yes, sir," he turns and flees, not stopping to breathe properly until he has reached the safety of his bed with the curtains shut tight.

He knows he should try to forget that it ever happened, but instead he buries his face in his pillow and shoves his hand into his pants, beyond shame now, seeking only relief from an urge he never knew existed. He knows, too, that Lucius Malfoy's face will haunt his dreams, perhaps forever -- and he thinks Lucius knows it, too.

That, then, is his punishment...and perhaps, in some way he is not ready to explain, his reward.


	2. Bravado

He watches Lucius Malfoy helplessly, unable to tear his eyes away, no more than he could in the prefect's bathroom. At the other end of the table in the Great Hall, from a distant corner of the Slytherin common room, going in and out of the Quidditch changing rooms and he would work up the courage to walk in himself under the pretext of having a message for one of the other players if he weren't afraid of finding Lucius alone.

For Lucius knows that he is watching. At least once a day, Lucius will catch his eye and smirk, or nod, and once -- when nobody else was near the corridor to Lucius' dormitory -- he even winked, his open eye seeming to repeat: _Our secret_.

And still, despite his terror, Severus finds excuses to pass the Transfiguration classroom when the seventh-year students will be shuffling out of class; he wanders through the Dark Arts section of the library, knowing that Defense is reportedly Lucius' favorite subject; and he finds reasons to take detours past the bathroom he should never have entered, drawn to the place as if some enchantment binds him to it.

"Where are you sneaking off to this time, Snivellus?" Potter calls to him after a joint Gryffindor and Slytherin Potions class. "Got a boyfriend down in the dungeon?" Black glances over at his friend, then laughs uproariously, as does Pettigrew, though Lupin busies himself with gathering up his books.

Although Lupin is the only one of the four who is ever nice to him, Severus snarls, "Why don't you ask _your_ boyfriend where he's always disappearing?" and nods at the pale boy with the strange scars while Lupin practically hides his face in his book bag. It gives him no pleasure to taunt Remus Lupin, but Black and Potter are invulnerable -- purebloods both, top students, and the latter certain to make his House Quidditch team the next year.

Fleeing, for there is no Slytherin student who will stand by Severus the way Potter and Black will defend even that worthless idiot Pettigrew, he takes a circuitous journey around Hogwarts and finds himself as if by luck instead of design once more in front of the prefect's bathroom on the fifth floor. It is safe now, he thinks, for it is nearly dinnertime and prefects are expected to arrive punctually to set a good example. To his surprise, Lucius comes around a corner holding a silver hairbrush in one hand and already unfastening the collar of his robes with the other.

"Severus Snape," says Lucius in a voice bright with mirth. "Trying to steal in here again? Didn't you see enough of the place last time? Or you wanted another look at the mermaid?"

"I..." stammers Severus. The truth is that he remembers very little of the bathroom from the last time, although he vaguely recalls that there was a painting of a mermaid. His senses had been entirely occupied by the man in the tub.

While he casts around for some excuse for having been in the corridor -- he cannot explain to Lucius Malfoy that he was escaping from a group of Gryffindor bullies -- Lucius steps up to the door and enunciates clearly, "Foaming bubbles." Immediately the door creaks open, letting the soft light of the candle-filled chandelier spill out into the hallway.

Lucius begins to step inside, then glances back at Severus almost impatiently. "Coming?"

"I -- can't -- "

"Of course you can, I've just invited you. Not that the lack of an invitation stopped you the last time, anyway."

This is spoken with an appreciation that makes Severus' knees feel weak. He had been afraid that Lucius considered him a coward for creeping about the school trying to catch a glimpse of him. Yet the possibility that Lucius deems this to be brazen behavior is worse. He may believe that Severus is brave, and expect Severus to accept with enthusiasm any offer he makes...

"Well, come on," says Lucius with a trace of irritation. "I'm not planning to drown you, just to give you a proper look at the place. Then you'll know what may await you if you become a prefect, and you'll have a reason to work extra hard at your studies, won't you?"

Gulping, Severus steps into the regal white marble bathroom. He has never seen the tub empty, and is astonished at its size; it more closely resembles a swimming pool with a diving board, and he has never imagined anything with the number of taps that encircle this bathtub's edges, the handles studded with a rainbow of colored gemstones. The stack of thick towels is so big that he suspects he could dive onto it without injuring himself.

He is torn between wanting to explore, to get a closer look at the mermaid in the painting whose eyes follow him curiously, her hair as long and yellow as Lucius', and wanting to stand rooted to the spot in the hope that Lucius will somehow forget his presence and go on with his ordinary routine. For so long, it seems, Severus has imagined what Lucius must have done before he intruded that day -- removing and folding his robes, setting a towel by the shallower end and slipping into the water...

"Go ahead, try the taps," Lucius encourages him. "I generally begin with the opal-colored handle; it produces foam that allows me to float on top of the water nearly unassisted." He grins knowingly at Severus, who blushes scarlet and kneels to turn the tap mostly to avoid Lucius' gaze. Gleaming white froth sprays out, beginning to fill the tub more quickly than Severus would have believed possible.

Then he turns the tap next to it, which releases a fragrant cloud of floral mist, but shuts it almost immediately, wanting no distracting scents. The tap next to that one produces silvery bubbles that rise and affix onto his hair like self-activating shampoo; the one beside that spills colorful ribbons of soap that slither over his hand when he lowers it into the rapidly filling tub.

"Isn't it delightful?" Heartened by the enthusiasm in Lucius' voice, Severus glances up at him, only to blush again when he sees that Lucius has removed his robes and is rapidly stripping off his underwear. Quickly Severus rises and steps back, averting his eyes, though he is aware of Lucius' incredulous stare. "What's the matter? Don't you want to get in?"

"I -- I shouldn't," Severus says.

At this, Lucius frowns. "You're a _Slytherin_," he says reprovingly. Afraid that his blank expression will betray him, Severus nods in agreement, but he does not understand why his being a Slytherin should make it permissible for him to enter the prefects' bathtub, and Lucius can see his confusion. "You can't go around hiding your ambitions, letting other people tell you what you should do," he scolds Severus. "If you don't want to, then you should tell me so, and if you do want to, then 'shouldn't' doesn't really matter, does it?"

Wavering in agony, Severus allows himself mere seconds to weigh his choices. If he is to get into the tub he will have to undress in front of Lucius and let the man see his scrawny, ugly body unprotected by robes; if he declines then Lucius will think him weak anyway; if he is naked in Lucius' presence his physical response will be impossible to hide and perhaps Lucius only wishes to ridicule him; if he ever wants Lucius to offer him anything again he had better graciously accept this invitation.

With shaking hands he begins to unfasten his robes, aware of clear blue eyes on his fumbling fingers. For a moment he thinks Lucius will offer to help, which only makes it harder to focus on his buttons, but then Lucius turns to remove the last of his own clothing, sits on the side of the tub and slips into the water, where the foam hides his form from view.

Turning his back on the tub, Severus drops his robes into a pile far less elegant than the neat stack Lucius has made, shuffles to the water with his hands over his groin and climbs in as quickly as possible. The water is much deeper than he had anticipated, rising to his chin, and he splutters a bit as it splashes into his nose and mouth. "Careful," says Lucius, reaching his side in two powerful strokes through the foamy water. "You can swim, can't you?"

"Of course," replies Severus firmly, though it is already apparent to him that Lucius has much greater skills in this regard than his own feeble ability to keep himself afloat. The frothy bubbles are clinging all over his body, making him feel more buoyant than usual and seemingly scrubbing at his skin; it feels invigorating and a bit ticklish, and he has trouble holding still.

"Here." Lucius touches something on the side of the tub to make a marble shelf jut out just beneath the surface of the water and foam. With muscular arms he lifts himself up and twists around to sit on the ledge, patting the empty space beside him. "Come sit, if you'd rather not swim." Reaching around, he turns another tap and fountains of water begin to spray over his back.

Severus is far less graceful raising himself onto the ledge, for the bubbles have made the surface slippery and his bottom glides as he sits, making him crash into Lucius before he regains his balance. They sit in silence side by side, with Severus waving his barely-visible legs in the foamy water beneath them as Lucius strokes froth up his own arms and shoulders, letting the warm jets wash it away. Seeing Lucius touching himself even in this thoughtless, sanitary manner makes Severus hard almost immediately; he hunches over, trying to hide his prick from view as it attempts to prod itself above the bubbles in his lap.

"Why are you ashamed of your body?" asks Lucius, sounding puzzled, not as if he might be taunting.

"I'm. You know. It's." If Lucius does not understand instinctively, then Severus doubts that any explanation will satisfy him; Lucius, after all, had evidently felt no shame not only at pleasuring himself but at having been caught in the act, and he seemed singularly unconcerned that his admirer was male rather than female. "I guess I'm not used to it," he mumbles.

"You are very young," grants Lucius, inclining his head as if conceding a point to Severus. "But intelligent, they tell me. Slughorn said that you're an excellent Potions student; he's been thinking of inviting you to join his little circle of toadies." Severus feels his breath catch in his throat, and his prick twitches in excitement: has Lucius been asking questions about him? "Somehow, though, you don't strike me as that sort of follower, though I couldn't help noticing that you've been following _me_."

Does Lucius want him to confess? Or to apologize? "I didn't mean to..." he begins urgently, but is forestalled by a soapy hand held up to silence him.

"I know you're something of a loner. You don't grovel to the purebloods from your year or try to curry favor with people who might have known your mother." Severus blushes again, for surely this means that Lucius knows his origins, but the man is studying him without contempt. "If you were looking for popularity, or protection, you'd do better to try to befriend someone closer to your own year; I'll be gone in the spring." The secret, dangerous smile has returned, playing at the edges of Lucius' mouth. "Well, Severus? Why _are_ you following me?"

Hastily dropping his eyes in embarrassment, Severus catches a glimpse of Lucius' prick poking up from the foam and shivers despite the warm enclosure of the bubbles. Weeks of remembering that imposing entity has made it less a source of intimidation for Severus than an object of reverence -- something he has conjured again and again, with his excitement overwhelming his humiliation. The sight of it now does not frighten him as it did, though it confirms the terrifying suspicion that he has desired Lucius' body, not just Lucius' power which might be more easily explained away. He is certain that Lucius knows the answer to his question...and more, that the answer arouses him.

Yet Lucius has not touched him. Though he invited Severus into his bath, he has in no way suggested that he craves the favors that Severus thinks he would dare to offer, now, if Lucius would let him. Perhaps Lucius is merely provoked by the understanding that he led Severus to this fall, and has no liking for Severus himself with his gaunt frame and lanky hair. But he did ask the question.

"You said...I can't go hiding my ambitions," Severus repeats as Lucius nods with an amused lift of his eyebrow. "And, if -- if I really wanted something, it doesn't really matter if I shouldn't?"

His voice quavers, betraying both his fear and his anticipation, making Lucius' expression turn more somber. This has all been an entertaining diversion for Lucius thus far, he supposes -- flattering and harmless. He could make a stupid declaration, tell Lucius what he has been dreaming since he last saw him in this room, which he suspects Lucius already knows. Or he can take a risk and do what Lucius' words imply.

"I want... I was hoping... Would you let me touch you?" he asks in a rush.

There is a moment of quiet in which the only sound in the room is the fizzing of the foam, its bubbles slowly dissolving into the water. Then Lucius shakes his head slowly, sighing. "Severus, you're too young. If you're not comfortable with your own body, you shouldn't entrust it to anyone else."

Severus had expected to be refused because he is of lesser blood and lesser talent -- and male -- but this is not a response that he had anticipated, and because it is not a rejection, he feels bold. "But you told me I shouldn't hide what I wanted," he reminds Lucius, who eyes him warily. "You said it didn't matter..."

"Maybe it matters to me," Lucius tells him. He's just as hard as he was before, not trying to hide from Severus' gaze. "I said you shouldn't bury your ambitions, but we can't have everything we want, you know. Not even when we come of age."

"No, but we could have this," Severus insists quietly, heart pounding with terror and excitement. Lucius says nothing. His hands rest on the edge of the shelf in the water, unthreatened and unthreatening; he is watching to see what Severus will do. Slowly, so that Lucius has time to twist away or push his hand back or immobilize him, Severus reaches through the water, touching first inside Lucius' thigh, and then, when there is no word of resistance or any reaction whatsoever other than a soft twitch of the muscle under his fingers, he moves them over and up along the shaft.

Lucius' prick seems to leap eagerly into his palm, lifting and pressing upward like a warm alive being. Touching it is nothing at all like touching himself; he cannot predict its reactions, the startled huff of breath that escapes Lucius' nose when he closes his fingers, the pulse in the vein along the underside as he moves his hand. This prick is thicker than his own and he has never wanked in a bathtub, always terrified that someone would come in, his mother or an elf or another student, but he does not think it is only the girth and the slippery bubbles that make this feel like a brand new sensation.

Lucius is sitting utterly still, watching him, his hands beneath the water holding the ledge, his legs spread. Severus thinks that perhaps Lucius does not mean the denials but simply does not want to admit that, yes -- he wants. The fear that had nearly paralyzed Severus is melting in the warm water into elation: he dared to name his desire and now it is being granted to him for no higher price than the confession.

"Should I do it faster?" he asks tremulously, trying to remember exactly how Lucius touched himself when he thought he was unobserved. He does not dare reach between his legs, to touch that place he had always considered dirty but which now obsesses him, but he remembers how Lucius used his whole arm and pressed his thumb just so. "Will -- will you turn?"

With his other hand he encourages Lucius to rotate his body until once again he lifts a leg over the lip of the tub, letting the other dangle off the shelf, hips changing their angle beneath the water. Severus speeds up his arm, trying to rub his thumb back and forth at the same time. Lucius looks more surprised than pleased as he moans, his fingers tightening on the side of the tub, "Is that right?"

Lucius does not speak, but lets his head fall back and eyes drift shut, parting his lips after a moment to moan again. It is more nearly the position he had been in when Severus watched him pleasure himself; Severus guesses that he must like the sensation, even if he will not say so. His prick has swelled so much that Severus cannot hope to close his hand around it, with the head growing dark and gleaming damply. It would fit perfectly between Severus' tongue and the roof of his mouth but he does not wish to risk distracting Lucius by leaning over to take it in. Perhaps, if he pleases Lucius enough, he can make such a selfish request another time.

"Would you like me to show you, or do you want to do this yourself?" Lucius asks softly, without opening his eyes.

"Oh. Show me. Please."

Lucius' hand detaches from the side of the tub and floats through the water to find Severus' on his prick; he closes his fingers more tightly and begins to move in shorter, rougher strokes. His eyes drift to Severus, watching his face curiously, as if uncertain whether he will be offended or excited or disappointed or grateful.

Severus meets his gaze but cannot spare the effort to smile, for touching Lucius like this, with the man's hand moving his own, is making his own prick throb and strain urgently. The foam in the water seems to respond to the heat in his groin, condensing and compressing with the same invigorating pressure he felt when he first entered the tub. When Lucius chokes on a cry and pulses in his hand, Severus feels himself tense and release into the accommodating bubbles, though his focus is still on the beautiful man who is letting him share this.

Watery whitish streaks have spattered Lucius' belly. His fingers slide from his prick into the water as if he will wash them away, but Severus stops him. "Wait. Can I taste it?"

"Don't you want..." Lucius begins hoarsely. His eyes drift open to take in Severus' flushed face and softening erection. "Or did you...just from making me come?" Ducking his head to hide his belated embarrassment, Severus leans over and, without permission, brushes his lips to the sticky stain on Lucius' belly above the waterline. Lucius' damp skin is smooth and slippery beneath his mouth; it is faintly salty beneath his tongue, and the white streaks are bitter. Severus' arms slide around Lucius as he licks him, so that by the time he raises his head, he realizes that he is embracing the man.

Lucius lifts a hand out of the water. His thumb strokes over Severus' cheekbone and across his lips. "What you lack in experience you make up for in impudence," he says without a trace of reproach and with a hint of regard. Still blushing, Severus lowers his eyes, wondering whether he ought to tell Lucius how much he has changed him simply by smiling when another might have hexed and humiliated him.

Then Severus nearly stops breathing for a moment as Lucius announces, "Listen. This can't continue..." He glances up in alarm while Lucius continues, "You must stop following me. People will notice." At his nod, Lucius adds, "I broke several rules for you today. I have to know that I can trust you."

"You can trust me," says Severus quickly.

"Then show me. Let me find you in my own time." The tiny, enigmatic smile has returned to the fine features. "You do want to keep our secret, don't you, Severus?"

"Of course!"

"Then get out of this tub, dry yourself off, get dressed and go have some dinner before the food is entirely gone."

In a matter of minutes Lucius has made him feel like a child again, but Severus is still too full of wonder to mind. Lucius invited him here. Lucius is suggesting that he might do it again.

And Severus understands some things for certain now. He will never recover from what he discovered spying on Lucius Malfoy. He will never recapture his innocence. Nor will he ever want to, for it is better to know oneself than to fear oneself...it is better to risk drowning than avoid the water.


	3. Kissing Lessons

Of all the rigors of his Hogwarts education, the hardest thing Severus must learn is not to stare at Lucius Malfoy. Not to watch the Head Boy's elegant fingers as he pins notices to the message boards. Not to steal glances up the Slytherin table to watch Lucius' mouth move as he bites into a piece of fruit. Not to watch the luxurious robes billowing as he walks past, to imagine those robes billowing right off his body into a pile at his feet...

Turning a teacup into a mouse is easy, compared to this. Defensive hexes sting less. The only time Severus can quiet his mind is during Potions, when the required precision and the rhythmic movement of stirring his cauldron calm his thoughts. History of Magic is hopeless, for his mind wanders across the centuries, imagining Lucius in different times, different places. Perhaps when kings and queens kept magicians at their courts, Lucius would have been a sorcerer, and Severus might have been his apprentice...

Lucius is here now, just on the other side of the bookcase, at the entrance to the Restricted Section where Severus dares not venture, though the library is nearly deserted. He spotted Severus when he came in, giving him a smirk as if to say that he knew why the boy had chosen the table closest to this particular collection of books, though he did not greet him by name. It has been nearly a week since Lucius spoke to him and Severus is beginning to feel the absence as a physical ache. If only he dared to approach him, now, when no one else could see...

"Aren't you coming?" asks a low, amused voice from behind the bookcase, and Severus makes a shockingly loud noise in the nearly silent library as he crashes his chair into a table leg in his haste to get to his feet.

Lucius is waiting for him, leaning calmly against a shelf of books on dark magic, arms and ankles crossed as if he hasn't another care in the world. "You've been a good boy, Severus," he murmurs enticingly. "I haven't once seen you on the fifth floor this week. You haven't been lurking outside the Transfiguration classroom, and you were very discreet watching through the window while the seventh-years were walking to the lake." Squirming, Severus ducks his head, pretending to be examining a book on the bottom shelf which has tentacles waving from its spine. "I thought that perhaps you'd lost interest."

"You said not to...!" cries Severus much too loudly, startling Lucius, who promptly uncrosses his arms and legs and steps closer with a finger held to his lips. "I thought you didn't want me to," he amends in a whisper, trembling when Lucius takes the finger from his own lips and presses it to Severus'.

"I was only teasing. I said you'd been a good boy, didn't I?" Lucius is smiling at him. "And I think you deserve a reward. What would you like for your reward, Severus?" This is so startling that Severus' lips part, and the tip of Lucius' finger slips between them, distracting him with the feel and taste that he can think of nothing else. After a moment Lucius withdraws the finger, painting Severus' lower lip with his own saliva. "Well? There must be something you'd like."

After an entire week without speaking to Lucius, Severus is ready to offer everything, to accept anything; he can think only that he must say something that will make Lucius realize the intensity of his interest, and show him that he can use Severus however he pleases. Steeling himself, he declares in a quiet voice, "I want you to fuck me."

Lucius steps back, studying him. His face is unreadable. "You want me to fuck you?" he repeats slowly. "Do you have any idea what you're asking?"

Turning scarlet, Severus drops his eyes. Is Lucius angry because he has asked him to break so many rules? Or because he has requested something so personal? Is this simply a step too far, something that Lucius would never do with another boy -- does he feel unmanned by the suggestion? In a small voice, Severus says, "You can do it any way you want..."

A hand tilts his chin so that he is forced to look into Lucius' face. "Has anyone ever fucked you?"

"N-no."

"Has anyone ever touched you there?"

"No!" He blushes. "I want you to be first. I'm a vir..."

Lucius shakes his head slightly to cut him off, indicating with a twitch of his cheek that Severus' wholesomeness isn't his concern at the moment. "Do you like to be touched there? Do you like to touch yourself, or put things in yourself?"

"I've, no, I've never -- "

"Have you ever seen people fucking?"

"No."

Releasing his chin, Lucius tilts his head, looking at him somberly. "Why do you want me to fuck you, Severus? Do you think either of us would enjoy doing something about which you have so little knowledge? Did you think I needed some display of complete submission?" And his lip curls.

"No!" Severus is nearly frantic; these are the cruelest words that Lucius has ever said to him, and he knows it is his own fault. "I thought you'd want to, I thought maybe you thought I owed you it after...if you thought I was being a tease, maybe you thought I wanted it already..."

"But you don't yet," says Lucius, with a kind of satisfaction on his face. "Do you? You aren't frightened or worried about what will happen?"

"I -- a bit." It is as if he is a child again and Lucius can see right through him. Of course Lucius wouldn't want to fuck a child, thinks Severus with disgust. He has ruined everything.

"What did I tell you about being honest about your desires?" asks Lucius, shaking his head very slightly. "Ten points from Slytherin. Let's begin again. What do you want?"

Severus rubs his cold, clammy palms on his robes and looks down again. "I want to go somewhere with you. Not here."

"You want us to be alone together." There is the faintest hint of smugness in Lucius' voice. "Have you heard of the Room of Requirement?" Severus has heard of it, but he had thought it was a legend, like the Chamber of Secrets that Salazar Slytherin had supposedly built within the walls of Hogwarts. As he stares, Lucius continues, "Oh, it's quite real. Come with me, I'll show you."

In silence they leave the library, Lucius smiling and nodding at the few people they pass in the corridors while Severus hunches his shoulders and shuffles his feet. He supposes that anyone who sees them will assume that the Head Boy is taking him to be disciplined for some transgression, and prays that his Gryffindor classmates are nowhere near. When they reach the seventh floor, Lucius halts before a tapestry of dancing trolls. The wall opposite appears to be blank stone, so Severus assumes that whatever they have come to find must be hidden behind the tapestry, but it is to the wall that Lucius walks.

"Wait," he instructs Severus and began to pace in front of the wall, eyes shut. When he turns a final time and looks up, Severus is astonished to see a door where there had been none before. "You see?" says Lucius with a smile, reaching for the handle. "Come."

Severus cannot help gaping like a first-year witnessing his first Transfiguration as they enter the room. There is nothing inside but a vast bed with pillows piled against its high back. Lucius looks amused. "When you're a bit older, there will be chests full of toys and treasures," he promises, and Severus does not think he means spinning tops or enchanted playing cards. "The Room gives you what you need -- I suppose it must believe that all we need is a bed. Look, it's even provided my own pillows."

He smiles at Severus, who can feel himself smiling uncertainly back at him. When he had asked Lucius to fuck him, he had had a vague notion of being taken to Lucius' dormitory, to Lucius' own bed, where the pleasure of lying on Lucius' pillows in the spot where Lucius slept would hopefully have diminished whatever pain and shame he felt from the act itself. Bending, Lucius removes his shoes, then goes to sit on the edge of this bed before Severus has finished doing the same. "All right, Severus. What would you like to do, now that we're here?"

This time Severus thinks hard before answering. He tries to remember what he has fantasized the past few nights, touching himself with thoughts of Lucius filling his mind. "Last time you let me touch..." he begins hesitantly. "And after, you let me, with my tongue..."

"Yes, I remember." The voice is warm as Lucius pats the bed beside him, inviting Severus to sit. "And now?"

"Now I want..." Severus clutches at his robes in his fists. "You in my mouth," he mutters quickly. "Come in my mouth."

Lucius continues to look at him as he begins to shed his robes, pink-faced and uneasy but determined. "That's what you want? That's all you want?"

"Please," Severus says. "Let me."

With a slow nod, Lucius begins to remove his own clothing. A chair appears out of nowhere for him to pile it upon, and he does so. "All right," he says in a strangely dispassionate voice. "If you're sure."

It takes Severus more time to remove his clothing with his nervous fingers, so that by the time he is finished, Lucius is already lying on the bed waiting for him. His prick is thicker than it would be if it was flaccid, but it is not fully erect. Severus kneels and leans over Lucius' groin, not daring to look at his face; he has dreamed of having him in his mouth, but now that he has Lucius spread out before him like a banquet, he is unsure how to begin.

Bending down, he draws the prick into his mouth, feeling it pulse faintly as he does so. He sucks harder to try to get the same response again and wonders at Lucius' silent stillness. Perhaps he is not sucking on enough of the shaft. Opening his mouth wider, he slides down on the prick, gags slightly as the head strikes the back of his throat, feels his teeth close automatically and hears Lucius make a loud noise of protest.

"_Stop_," he says sharply, and Severus, already pale and tearing up from gagging, pulls back and closes his eyes in shame. He feels Lucius lift his head to look at him. "Have you ever done this before?"

Blushing as he did when Lucius asked him what he knew about fucking, Severus squirms and shakes his head. He shifts back, preparing to apologize again, while Lucius rises onto his elbows, but Lucius sits up before the words have come and reaches out for his hands.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Severus shakes his head, still unable to meet his eyes. Tugging on his fingers, Lucius pulls him closer. "I don't understand why you're trying to rush things. Don't you want to learn to do this correctly, so that both of us will enjoy it?"

"Yes..."

"Then will you trust me?"

Risking a quick glance up, Severus sees no anger or condescension in Lucius' steely blue eyes, only a flash of calculation, as if he's measuring Severus' courage against what he had believed it to be. Quickly he nods, afraid that his voice will betray him.

Lucius squeezes his hands again. "Come sit back against the pillows." He shifts away and lets Severus crawl up so that the two of them have very nearly switched positions on the bed. Then he leans over Severus, pushing a stray lock of hair from his face. This is nearly as intimidating as trying to suck Lucius' prick, and Severus trembles. Seeing this, Lucius strokes his cheek.

"Let's start at the beginning. Do you know how to kiss?"

At least Lucius hadn't asked if he'd ever kissed anyone. The answer, of course, is no, with the exception of relatives his mother had made him kiss, and that is hardly an experience upon which he dwells. "Not really," he mutters.

The smile on Lucius' face tells him that this reply does not surprise him. "Then that's a good place to begin," he whispers, and leans in, brushing his lips very softly over Severus' mouth. It feels like feathers on his lips and a tidal wave crashing through his body. To Severus' intense embarrassment, he moans, but Lucius only smiles and does it again. "Now your turn."

Pushing up with his shoulders, Severus raises his face to Lucius, puckering his lips. He smashes their faces together rather more forcefully than he intends, but keeps his mouth there, pressing hard...

Lucius draws back slightly, releasing a warm puff of breath that might be laughter. "Gently," he chides and kisses Severus again, letting his mouth linger, increasing the contact and then almost pulling away before doing it again and again. Without thinking Severus grips his arm, unsure whether or not he is allowed to breathe, not wanting Lucius to pull back to let him. He lets out another helpless moan as he feels Lucius' tongue brush his lips.

"Now, I know you like to use your mouth -- you did it so enthusiastically in the tub," Lucius reminds him, and Severus tries not to whimper. "So I'm going to kiss you properly, and if you want to suck on my tongue or lick it, you do that."

Breathlessly Severus nods, and a moment later he feels Lucius' mouth on his again, urging it open. He parts his teeth, feeling the tongue tracing inside his lower lip, a sensation that both tickles and makes his prick twitch and swell. Hesitantly he pushes his own tongue up, encountering Lucius' which slides over it, up and down in a rhythm like Severus' hand would use to make himself come. He whimpers again right in Lucius' face, but Lucius does not seem to mind, freeing Severus' tongue so he can close his mouth slightly and suck on Severus' upper lip.

"Now you try it," he murmurs when he releases Severus, settling more fully over him with one thigh between Severus' parted legs. Severus cranes his neck and with the greatest of enthusiasm slides his tongue into Lucius' mouth, tasting his lips, the shocking softness inside his cheek, the ridge behind his teeth. When he finds that he must break off to breathe and swallow, Lucius' hand returns to stroking his hair. "You can put your arms around me, you know," he smiles, rocking forward just enough to send bursts of heat through Severus' groin.

Severus can feel that Lucius is hard -- harder than he was when Severus tried to use his mouth on him, leaving a damp streak along his thigh. Yet Lucius' back is relaxed beneath his hands, smooth and flat as he strokes up it, finding the back of Lucius' neck and pulling his head down for another kiss. Lucius' hair falls across the side of his face, soft and sweet-smelling; his tongue returns to explore, showing Severus places in his mouth that he did not know could hold so much sensation. His body is burning everywhere they touch, places he had never thought to rub like the insides of his elbows as well as his nipples and along his collarbone.

And Lucius is still rocking gently, his thigh pressing up and back over Severus' prick in the same rhythm that their tongues are thrusting together. Holding him, kissing him like a lover, passionate and tender. Too late Severus feels his muscles going rigid, his balls tightening, "I'm, ahh, I'm..." and hears Lucius' whispered response:

"I know you are.

The spasms wrack his body, making him arch against Lucius; he feels the spurts from his prick gushing between them, wetting them both. Lucius is still wrapped around him, murmuring what sounds like encouragement; his fingers stop stroking Severus' hair as if afraid of distracting him when he begins to gasp but they resume as he quiets. Mortified, Severus tries to keep his face against Lucius' shoulder, but Lucius lifts himself up to look down at him.

"Isn't this better than trying to force things?"

Severus' mouth is still tingling from Lucius' kisses; he gnaws his lower lip. "I wanted to make _you_ come," he says shyly.

Sliding his hip to the mattress, Lucius settles at his side and pulls Severus to face him. Lucius' prick pokes up in the middle, and they both look down at it, watching it twitch as Severus reaches out a finger to wipe a streak of come from Lucius' skin. To Severus' surprise, Lucius catches his wrist and lifts it, licking the tip of the dirty finger as Severus shivers. Then he draws the finger into his mouth, sucking down to the knuckle, sliding it over his tongue, teasing the center.

"Now pay attention," he admonishes, his smile undercutting the stern tone as he begins to tease Severus' finger with his mouth, using his breath and the underside of his lip and the merest suggestion of teeth, holding it firmly in one hand. Severus whimpers helplessly, squirming; his prick is hypersensitive from ejaculating, and it feels as though Lucius is doing to it what he's doing only to this single finger.

"You want to be very careful with those teeth," whispers Lucius, blowing hard on the fingertip, then sucking up and down rhythmically to the bottom knuckle a few times. "And you can use your whole face -- " He rubs his nose up and down the length, licks across the top of the palm, moves back up the finger pressing down with his chin.

Severus bites his lip again to keep from moaning, straining to touch Lucius' chest with the hand trapped beneath his own body. "_Now_ can I...?" he pleads.

Smiling, Lucius offers him one of his own fingers. With a soft moan, Severus sucks it in at once before he remembers that he is supposed to be demonstrating a more refined technique and withdraws, attempting to tease the fingertip with his tongue. He is still looking at Lucius, who is still grinning at him, not looking displeased at his eagerness; Lucius' prick is throbbing against Severus' hip.

"Why don't you let me help you," he says softly. Withdrawing his finger, he gets to his knees, gesturing for Severus to sit up once more, then pushes his shoulder until he is slouching against the pillows. Shuffling forward, Lucius straddles his legs, kneeling directly above his face with his swollen prick bobbing just out of reach of his mouth. Retracting the foreskin fully, Lucius grasps the base, shifts his weight forward and rubs the head against Severus' lips.

"Just taste," he warns. "Don't try to suck it."

Severus' tongue shoots out of his mouth like a snake's, catching the bead of moisture gathering at the tip. It is sweeter and saltier than come, and Severus pulls his tongue in to swallow it before he returns to licking the enthusiastically throbbing shaft which Lucius is stroking up and down from the base halfway to Severus' lips. "That's good," he murmurs, eyes drifting closed. Severus reaches one hand beneath Lucius' to cup his balls, which makes Lucius moan and spread his legs a bit more widely. "That's very good...ohh."

Severus feels his own prick twitch; he has not touched it since he came, but all his senses are filled with Lucius and the sight and sounds and taste and smell and feel of him stroking himself against Severus' lips is unbearably arousing. Increasing his tongue's attentions to the head of the prick, Severus strokes a finger around behind the balls, feeling for that spot that has fascinated him since he first saw Lucius touching it. The noises coming from the man's throat are no longer coherent, and his hand is moving urgently, bumping into Severus' chin in his haste.

"Close your eyes," says Lucius in a strangled voice, clamping his other hand on Severus' shoulder as if he wishes to be certain that Severus will not move his mouth away now. His hips thrust forward, shoving his prick into his own hand and Severus' face. It is much more difficult to lick it now, with his eyes shut and Lucius no longer holding still for him, so Severus removes his hand from Lucius' tensing balls to grasp a buttock.

The moment he squeezes it, Lucius lets out a roar and hot fluid sprays over Severus' lips and cheek. He wants so much to look at Lucius, but the first spurt strikes very near his eye, and when his tongue finds the head he receives a mouthful of hot bitter come that he must concentrate on swallowing before it makes him choke. Lucius' fingers are still gripping his shoulder; Severus does not think that he is capable of releasing him now, and the understanding that he has made Lucius lose that small measure of control makes up for the burning in his throat.

After a few moments Lucius slows, unclenching his fingers and sliding his now-wet prick away from Severus' face. Hesitantly Severus opens his eyes. Lucius is looking down at him with his lips parted, eyes half-closed; it is difficult to know whether he looks sated or slightly overwhelmed. Severus can see his throat working as he swallows before he asks in a thick voice, "Did you like that?"

Nodding, Severus removes his hand from Lucius' backside to wipe his face. At this Lucius smiles, and he thinks that perhaps he should lick his fingers clean, but he does not believe that he can swallow any more, so instead he wipes his hand on his belly. Following the movement of the fingers, Lucius looks down to see that Severus is hard again and smiles approvingly. "I see that you did."

Severus is not certain whether he is supposed to be ashamed that he enjoyed letting Lucius come on him like that. He bites his lip, but Lucius leans over and kisses his sticky face, sliding downward, removing his hand from Severus' shoulder to rest on his own elbow. "I could take care of that," he says casually, brushing his mouth against Severus' prick, then looking up at his gasp. "Would you like that? Or have you had enough?"

"Oh -- not enough -- " Involuntarily Severus' hips have canted upward, trying to bring his prick within range of Lucius' mouth again. He flushes all over his face and chest. "Oh yes please..."

Lucius is still smiling as he lowers his mouth, eyes locked on Severus' while he grasps the prick in his hand, plays with the foreskin and tip with his fingers and then swipes his tongue brazenly over and around the crown. He makes a show of covering his teeth with his lips before letting his mouth descend, continuing to move his tongue, licking at the head while faint sucking pressure tugs at the shaft. It is like nothing Severus has ever felt before and he lets out a keening wail. Quickly Lucius releases him, looking up. "Too much?"

"Oh please no don't stop please!" The moment the words are out of his mouth he wants to swallow them back, but Lucius does not seem to mind them; with a wicked grin, he lowers his head again and repeats it all, then licks his way down the shaft to take one of Severus' balls into his mouth, holding it very gently and moving his tongue back and forth across the underside. Severus has his legs spread so widely at this point that the muscles in his thighs are straining, but he does not care; he does not care about anything but the fact that Lucius Malfoy is touching him like this, showing him how, making him come.

It happens shockingly fast, when Lucius has finished with his other testicle and slides his lips back onto his prick. He begins to bob his head up and down, putting pressure on the shaft and continuing to use his tongue around the head, nudging one particular spot somewhere below the slit. Helplessly Severus arches upward, thrusting himself deeper into Lucius' mouth, feeling Lucius close his throat reflexively; he has no control, neither to stop himself from spilling over nor to pull back enough to avoid filling Lucius' mouth, but Lucius does not seem surprised, withdrawing his lips to circle the head and swallowing everything that Severus pumps out.

"Now, will you remember what I did and think about it often, so that you'll know what to do next time?" asks Lucius with an entirely naughty expression when he has raised his head and watched Severus attempt to catch his breath. Nodding, for he still does not trust his voice, Severus slides lower on the pillows, hoping that Lucius will lie over him again. At first the older man crawls up at his side, looking down at him as he rests on an elbow, but when Severus tilts his head up toward his mouth, he rolls to kiss him and does not pull away.

"One of the best things about this room is that it cleans itself up," Lucius murmurs when Severus reluctantly frees his lips so he can breathe. "Not you, though..." He licks over Severus' cheekbone, where Lucius' semen has dried, and kisses each of Severus' eyelids when his eyes drift shut.

With a contented hum, Lucius lets his head fall to rest beside Severus on the pillow. "What did you like best?" he asks drowsily.

"The -- " Pausing, Severus is mortified to realize the ease with which he almost admitted that it was the kissing. "Just -- everything."

"You're a very good student," says Lucius smugly. "I'm not going to fuck you until you've shown me you're ready...and then it will be your reward."


	4. Exemplary Conduct

With a dedication surpassing that which he devotes to his homework in Potions, Charms, Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts, Severus Snape engrosses himself in the studies assigned to him by Lucius Malfoy.

Honeydukes sweets are no longer pleasures in themselves but opportunities to practice licking and sucking. Baths not only let him clean himself but give him the chance to explore his body, to discover its sensations and determine which reactions he can control. Mealtimes, even when no one speaks to him, become a sensual delight, for he can surreptitiously revel in the taste and feel on his tongue of each morsel, and at the same time he can teach himself restraint -- not to stuff himself, not to devour treats best savored one at a time.

Praise from Lucius means more to him than any Outstanding mark he might receive, for the lessons are infrequent and Severus is impatient. Unlike the academic subjects in which he can catch up during the summer or next year if necessary, Lucius will be within his reach only for these short months before leaving Hogwarts forever. The pursuit requires sacrifice, missing afternoons down by the lake when Severus' peers presume he is holed up in the library, then isolating himself even further by missing study sessions.

One day, when Severus has been caught unfairly along with his Gryffindor classmates upon whom he had been spying as they set up an elaborate prank, Lucius coolly suggests that the Slytherin culprit should clean the prefect's bathroom as his punishment. Though he is innocent, Severus grudgingly accepts this fate because he knows that the Head Boy will find him there. By the time Lucius arrives, Severus has very nearly filled the tub with soapy bubbles that would have allowed him to pretend that he was cleaning if anyone else had walked in. He is edgy with anticipation, and when Lucius settles beside him at the edge of the tub, he gives Severus a mock scowl in response to the look with which he is faced.

"Don't tell me you're angry with me for getting you detention in this room. I thought that you'd be pleased to have two hours alone with me in the middle of the week."

"Of course I am," says Severus, then bursts out: "But I had nothing to do with that hex they put on those Ravenclaws. It was Potter's idea, and Black's bragging was the reason they got caught..."

Lucius has narrowed his eyes. "You don't like Black? He's from a very well-connected family, you know. It's a shame he ended up in Gryffindor; nearly all the others have been Slytherin." Severus thinks of the very pretty Narcissa Black, whom he doubts even knows that he exists, and of Sirius, who for some reason has singled him out as a subject for torment. "Anyway, it isn't as if you have to serve detention with him." And that idea leads to one which is worse. If handsome, wealthy Sirius Black had been Slytherin, might he be here with Lucius now instead of Severus?

The thought is intolerable, but of course it cannot be expressed aloud. "It isn't fair," fumes Severus instead. "Lupin didn't get detention and I'm sure he helped them. And I've got to put up with them till I get out of this school."

He has been considering what Lucius said about how he would do well to find more friends his own year...but there is no one he wants to be with, no one to whom he would dare confide the shocking transformation he has undergone since he first broke in to this bathroom. So there is no one to whom he can express the unhappiness and frustration that plague him, for he is at Lucius' mercy: he must depend on Lucius to find time to meet, to take him someplace where no one will find them. But Lucius is Head Boy, a seventh-year finishing his studies, and has many other matters to occupy his attention. Unlike Severus, he does not exist from moment to moment anticipating these meetings. If Severus hadn't been caught hanging around Black, Lucius might not have spoken to him for another week.

As if he senses that not all of Severus' bitterness is directed at Black, Lucius reaches out and strokes his hair, which as usual is clinging to his skin in the steamy room. "We're here, aren't we? Doesn't that make you happy?"

"Yes," says Severus, and then, without thinking, "I've never even seen your dormitory."

Sitting back a bit, Lucius regards him. "You want to be taken to my bed?" he asks softly. It makes Severus very sorry that he spoke, for he knows this is asking too much, for practical reasons such as the likelihood of getting caught as well as for more intimate reasons. He bites his lip on an apology, but Lucius only looks pensive and pushes his hair back behind his ear. "You're trying to hurry things along again, Severus. I wanted you here for a reason, you know -- there are some things that it's better to try in a room filled with soap bubbles and water."

At the suggestive look on Lucius' face and the softest brush of his lips, Severus indeed finds that he can ignore how he came to be in the prefect's bathroom, for the invitation to kiss and put his hands on Lucius drives most other thoughts from his mind. He knows that his kisses are still too greedy, yet Lucius accepts them as if he expected nothing else, letting Severus put his arms around him and hold on with an urgency that Severus doubts he will ever learn to control. He was hard before Lucius ever entered the room and now he is achingly so, already looking for excuses to rub up against the man's firm warm body.

"Wait. You'll like this." One of the jeweled spigots releases bubbles that are the size of a grown man and will float on the surface of the water like an inflatable raft on the surface of a lake, warm and unbreakable without a spell to pop them. Lucius reaches over to turn that tap, setting loose a large floating cushion in the midst of the water and suds. "Climb aboard," he murmurs in an amused voice, urging Severus down into the tub. "On your belly. There are charms that would work just as well for this, but sometimes it's more fun getting clean this way."

Slipping into the water behind him, Lucius helps lift Severus onto the bubble with his feet sticking out off the edge. Then Lucius hoists himself partway up behind Severus, making the surface tilt alarmingly before he settles partly over Severus' back with his legs submerged. With one hand he reaches over the side, scooping up a handful of warm, soapy water that he begins to rub into Severus' lower back and bum. It feels good -- relaxing and arousing -- and Severus feels his frustrations dissolving, for the moment, beneath the strong fingers.

Then Lucius' thumb slides into the crack between Severus' buttocks and sweeps downward, casually, as if it had slipped in by accident. Catching his breath, Severus parts his legs very slightly and lifts his hips as much as he dares. Lucius touches him there again deliberately, letting the thumb move in little circles while the rest of his hand tightens on Severus' arse. After a few minutes of silence apart from the fizzing of bubbles in the water and Severus' shaky breathing, he asks, "Do you like that?"

"Yes," whispers Severus, painfully hard and squirming between the accommodating surface of the bubble and Lucius' palm. Perhaps finally Lucius will touch him _inside_, perhaps today Lucius will let Severus demonstrate that he has been trying to learn...

The thumb makes two more brief, gentle circles of the opening, then slides away as Lucius scoops another handful of bubbles and water from the tub. "The first time I ever heard of what I'm going to do," he says very matter of factly, washing Severus in a manner that makes him feel simultaneously wanton and like a dirty little boy, "I kept thinking about how unclean it must be. But you're very clean now, aren't you, Severus?"

As if to make sure, Lucius' fingers rub firmly over the puckered spot and Severus moans loudly, thrusting his hips back. "You've been touching yourself here, haven't you," guesses Lucius in a voice that suggests it's another naughty secret between them. One fingertip probes deeper, barely breaching the hole, so close to what Severus wants...

Then the fingertip is gone and Lucius slides away off the back of the bubble. Severus whimpers in protest, which seems to amuse Lucius: "Tsk. So impatient." The pressure of Lucius' body surfacing behind him spreads his legs wide, and he understands what Lucius means to do just as he feels Lucius' arms wrap over the backs of his thighs and the swipe of a tongue along the curve of his arse...

And Lucius puts his mouth _oh just there_. Kissing, at first, lightly, teasing the surface with pursed lips before letting his tongue graze the tiny wrinkles, each of which seems to hold as much sensation as Severus' prick, which is cushioned against the bubble that molds itself to his body each time he shifts. What Lucius is doing makes him writhe helplessly though he wants to hold still for that tongue, which probes the hole, slipping in more easily than Severus' finger ever has even if he sucked on it first. Lucius pushes his tongue in once, twice, again, he is thrusting it into Severus, he is fucking Severus with his tongue, while Severus' swollen prick throbs and shoves against the bubble that follows his every movement.

It is too much pleasure, and no matter how he tries to distract himself thinking of _potion formulas Quidditch scores werewolf fangs containment spells anything_, he cannot hold out against it. Once again Lucius makes him come with a loud cry, feeling contractions and spasms in places he has never been aware of before. He is terrified that he is in fact still not clean enough and Lucius will find him disgusting, but when it is over Lucius is still there.

By the time Severus has recovered enough to speak, the bubble beneath him has washed away the mess he has made on his belly and Lucius has flopped over him, nudging the back of his thigh with his erection and uttering a satisfied, "There." It strikes Severus very suddenly that perhaps Lucius means to fuck him right now, here in the tub without giving him a chance to prepare himself in his mind for the event. He feels a spike of panic deep inside and tries to close his legs so suddenly that he nearly knocks Lucius off his back.

"Careful!" objects Lucius sharply, steadying himself, then slipping off Severus entirely to turn on the tap again, creating another enormous bubble so that the two side-by-side very nearly fill the width of the tub. Lunging on to it, Lucius draws alongside Severus and leans over to look at his face. "Are you uncomfortable?" he asks in a more concerned tone.

"No -- I'm sorry, I just moved the wrong way," mutters Severus. He knows that he apologizes too often to Lucius, who expects explanations but not contrition, and he fears that Lucius will recognize his alarm and shame. "I didn't know what you were trying, um. Do you want me to do that to you?" The idea that Lucius might allow Severus to put any part of himself inside, even his tongue, overrides any squeamishness he might have felt, but after a moment Lucius shakes his head.

"It is rather slippery in here, isn't it? And my skin is wrinkling from all the bubbles." Lucius looks at him speculatively. "My dormitory should be empty; the others will be down at the lake. I suppose that this is as good a time as any. Would you like me to take you to my bed?"

"Yes!" Severus twists so quickly to face him that he slides off the bubble, landing with a splash in the tub and surfacing with an undignified splutter. When he catches his breath, red-faced and gasping, he finds Lucius looking down at him not with the mockery he fears, but with an affectionate smile.

"So eager," he murmurs, slipping into the water with Severus. He stretches one hand out of the tub to turn a tap, and after only a brief jet from it, all the bubbles have vanished, leaving them floating in clear cool water that rinses the froth from their skin. "That's better," says Lucius, reaching under the surface to see that Severus is indeed clean, then tugging him to the side of the tub with one powerful stroke. "Now out you go, and get dressed."

On the way to the Slytherin common room they pass Professor Slughorn, who gives Severus a nod and turns a bright smile on Lucius. Severus is wary of Slughorn, with his circle of followers and his unfair favoritism; still, Potions is his best subject, thanks to the copious notes his mother left for him, and he knows that being seen in Malfoy's company can only enhance his stature in the eyes of his Head of House. "No more misbehaving with Gryffindors," Slughorn admonishes him with a jovial chortle, and Severus grits his teeth. "You'll keep an eye on this one, won't you, Lucius?"

"Certainly, sir," replies Lucius with a sincere smile. "I've just now promised to help Snape with his homework." Slughorn beams, Severus flushes, and with an elegance possessed by few men so young, Lucius sweeps past the portly teacher toward the dormitories.

Though all the beds in the dungeon room have been hung with identical curtains, Severus could tell at once which belonged to Lucius even if he did not recognize the oversized pillows in fine linen cases which had been reproduced in the Room of Requirement. The covers have been pulled meticulously into place with a stripe of satin sheet folded across the blanket at the top. A heavy silver snake paperweight sits on the bedside table looking as if it is guarding the quills and books piled there.

Kicking his shoes beneath the table, Lucius sits on the bed and indicates with a gesture that Severus should do the same. He does so, pulling his legs up beneath him, and Lucius reaches to tug the curtains closed around them, cocooning them within the dimness of the green tapestries.

"I've never had a boy in this bed," Lucius says conversationally as if the thought has only just occurred to him, lifting an eyebrow when Severus shivers. "Some purebloods frown upon this sort of thing, you know. I've never understood why. So long as a man produces an heir from a strong bloodline, why shouldn't he enjoy himself?"

Though he nods, Severus thinks privately that this is a surprising admission from someone in Malfoy's position -- even potentially dangerous. Abruptly he realizes that Lucius did not disapprove when he believed that Severus had been involved in the prank on the Ravenclaws but likely admired him for it; his disapproval of Black and Potter would arise not from their mischief but from their carelessness in getting caught.

Indeed, ponders Severus, Lucius is far more concerned with appearances than he first suspected. Hadn't he asked Severus to stop following him, and hasn't he been very careful to stress that these meetings must be their secret? Now Lucius is removing his clothing, piling it neatly in a corner within the confines of the curtains where no one entering the dormitory might see it and wonder. For all the privileges of being Lucius Malfoy, he has far more to lose if he is ever caught behaving inappropriately. The Head Boy casts a silencing charm on the bed and places his wand beneath the headboard, as if he cannot allow it out of his sight.

Removing his own robes, Severus makes a pile in the opposite corner and shifts onto his knees to look at Lucius, who has slouched against his pillows with his eyes half-closed and his hair fanned about his face. He looks lazy and decadent; Severus has an urge to crawl over him, to kiss his lips swollen and rub against him until the pale skin flushes and Lucius groans, thrusting back., But surely Lucius would never want to lie beneath him and let him do anything of the sort, and he flushes hotly as he realizes that his body has revealed his arousal just from looking.

Ducking his head, he crawls over Lucius and kisses his belly, for this at least has never been denied to him. When Lucius shifts his legs, giving Severus better access, he dares to kiss the crown of Lucius' prick, and at the encouraging noise from Lucius' throat, he cautiously nudges the foreskin out of the way so that he can lick Lucius properly. The taste is rich and strong, particularly since Lucius' belly is so clean and bland by comparison.

Holding the base of the prick in his hand, Severus licks and sucks at the head, glancing up at Lucius' face from time to time to be certain that he is doing this right; then, when Lucius whimpers softly and pushes up a bit against his lips, he dares to take more of the shaft into his mouth, taking care to cover his teeth with his lips as he does so. He remembers how Lucius stroked himself with his hand while offering only the very tip to Severus and begins to move his wrist. Again Lucius groans, shifting to give Severus more space to work between his legs, spreading his arms as well. To Severus' surprise he reaches over his head and picks up his wand.

It is difficult to watch Lucius and suck the prick properly at the same time, yet Severus wants to do both, to pleasure the man and watch him enjoying the experience. He wonders whether Lucius wants to do something perverse with the wand or only to hold it like a talisman of power. When Lucius flicks the wand at the curtains, the ties that would have held the panels of fabric open if they had not been pulled closed begin to move. They stroke his face, sliding over his armpits and wrapping sinuously around his arms. Severus can feel as well as see Lucius responding to this additional stimulation; the prick swells in his mouth. The ends of the curtain fastenings wraps themselves into knots around Lucius' wrists, pulling tight, lifting his upper body as they tug at his arms.

Even though Severus has played no part in this surrender, it is deeply arousing to see Lucius restrained, unable to touch himself, dependent upon Severus for his release. His hips are pumping upward in a steady rhythm, not quite thrusting; he is permitting Severus to set the pace. Cautiously Severus takes him in slightly deeper, discovering that he can do so without gagging. He speeds up his hand on the thick muscle the way he would like to touch his own stiff prick, which he rubs against Lucius' leg while he sucks. He thinks about what Lucius did to him in the tub, and how Lucius touched himself the first time he watched him, and lets his fingers wander behind the balls to the tight pucker that quivers beneath his touch.

Lucius cries out, straining against the curtain cords, his entire body tensing. Severus tries to look at his face, but a moment later his throat is flooded with hot bitter liquid and it takes all his concentration to swallow it without choking. It is not until Lucius has collapsed flat against the mattress, withdrawing, that Severus feels the triumph of having made Lucius come in his mouth. His throat is burning and the back of his nose feels funny, as if he needs to sniffle, but the sight of Lucius with his arms slack in the ties and his hair askew around his face is more than enough compensation.

"Finite Incantatem," mutters Lucius in a hoarse voice, and the curtain fastenings release him. Eyes closed, he rubs his wrists, then peers at Severus. "You learn quickly. You did that very well." Blushing at the praise, Severus lowers himself to lie beside Lucius, not quite daring to touch him until Lucius rolls with a grunt onto his side and runs a fingertip along Severus' erection. "So eager," he says again, with a hint of smugness, and begins to tease Severus with all his fingers. "You want to come again for me, in my bed, don't you?"

Breathlessly Severus nods, reaching up to grip a pillow as the hand starts to stroke him expertly. Lucius' face hovers above his own, watching his reactions; Severus wishes that he would kiss him, but at the same time he finds it exciting to be studied in this way. The hand clutching the pillow stretches above his head toward the wall, but he does not know the spell that Lucius used to make the curtain cords creep over his skin and bind his wrists. "What's that spell to make the cords move?" he groans at Lucius, who glances directly into his eyes.

Lifting his wand in his free hand, Lucius points at the cords and says, "Involito!" This is not the spell that Severus heard him whisper before, but it does make the cords and the backs of the curtains sway across his arms and face, waving and caressing gently. "Do you like the way that feels?" asks Lucius, bending to brush a kiss across his mouth.

"Yes," Severus says, and then, "How do you make them knot?"

Lucius is rubbing his nose against Severus' cheekbone so that Severus cannot see his eyes. His breath stutters softly on Severus' skin as he raises his wand again. "Redimio." Instantly Severus feels the cords begin to tighten like fingers on his wrists, wrapping and pulling at his arms, spreading him wide, leaving him completely exposed.

For a split second he feels panic as he did in the tub, but he remembers that Lucius did this to himself with him, left himself so unprotected, and the panic dissolves into thrill. He had thought at first that perhaps Lucius' intention was merely to have his skin stimulated by the fabric -- that the slow knotting and tugging were merely incidental. But now, with his arms straining against the headboard, Severus is certain that Lucius wanted to be tied up. He is unsure whether to be sorry or relieved that Lucius did not ask him to do it but used a spell, maintaining control over the experience; he suspects that Lucius did it that way not from any fear of granting Severus such power over him, but from concern that Severus would be disturbed if he asked.

The older man is watching him again with an intent, guarded expression, and Severus shuts his eyes, letting out a quiet, needy moan as he arches his hips toward Lucius' fingers. Immediately the hand speeds up its attentions, tugging, pulling insistently at Severus' prick. "That's it," says Lucius in a tone of surprise, as if he had not expected Severus to respond with such enthusiasm. "Let go. Give in to it. Come for me..." And he keeps talking in that low maddening voice until Severus does, clenching and unclenching his bound hands as his body jerks and shudders through the jolts of the eruption from his prick.

When it is over, Lucius is looking down at him with an unfamiliar expression, though certainly not an unpleasant one. He appears startled, though whether this is at Severus' response or at his own, Severus cannot guess. Raising his wand, he utters one spell to clean Severus and another to release him from the cords, though his own hands have slid to Severus' aching wrists before Severus can draw them down. He does not speak as he strokes them, tracing the deep red imprints with gentle fingers.

Willing submission to another for pleasure rather than gain does not seem to Severus to be a very Slytherin trait, but perhaps the pleasure is its own reward. Perhaps Lucius believes it would reveal greater weakness to deny himself the things that excite him than to admit that he enjoys surrendering in that way. Severus remembers what Lucius said to him the first time he had asked permission to touch him: _We can't have everything we want, you know. Not even when we come of age._ He thinks about the fact that Lucius is only barely an adult who may not have very much experience testing such limits outside of Hogwarts, where adult witches and wizards are not sorted into Houses but must negotiate their own places in the world.

Is it possible that Lucius enjoys him not in spite of his inexperience, but because of it -- because Severus does not know enough to question, or to judge? He had not thought that he had anything to offer the older man besides compliance, and had feared that Lucius must feel greatly superior at Severus' willingness to oblige him. But Severus has also wondered why Lucius would sully himself with someone he could not respect, and now he thinks that maybe Lucius actually admires him for such a direct display of desire, no matter how clumsy and childish it might have been. For all his wealth and his position, perhaps Lucius has not been so fortunate in his ability to seek out what he wants.

Hesitantly Severus slides a hand up a muscular arm, pulling the man closer. "You're a good boy, Severus," Lucius tells him with a smile, without the condescension that a parent or a teacher might offer for proper behavior.

If he can be good for Lucius, Severus knows, he will find it more rewarding than any outstanding mark, any praise for his conduct, even any physical pleasure. "Thank you," he says humbly, and when Lucius kisses him, he is certain that winning the Quidditch Cup could not rival this feeling.


	5. Holiday Gifts

Severus Snape has never much enjoyed the Christmas holidays. His father drinks too much and shouts about money. His mother quietly laments the things that they cannot afford, reminding Severus that he must take extra care with his school things and his clothes.

He does not mind that all his books are second-hand, for his mother was a good student and her meticulous notes have helped him in several classes, though he would never tell her so. But the ugly clothes he receives each Christmas, hideous Muggle jumpers and already threadbare dress robes, are an embarrassment, as he does not hesitate to tell her despite the bleak, cowed look on her face. He cannot allow Lucius Malfoy to see him in such rags!

Truly Severus is more miserable this Christmas than ever before. Trapped at home in this dirty, miserable Muggle town, there is not even the remotest possibility that he might see Lucius. Were he in London, he could at least entertain the fantasy that he might pass Lucius in Diagon Alley or in a park or museum, but at Spinner's End he does not even want to imagine being spotted by Lucius. When he was at Hogwarts there was always the chance that he might bump into the older man in a corridor, even when Lucius was too busy or preoccupied to acknowledge him. Here there is no hope of seeing Lucius at all.

This would be an unhappy thought itself, but worse, it makes Severus think about what his life will be like during the summer holidays, when he will not have a return to Hogwarts to anticipate. For Lucius will not be back at school in the fall; Lucius will have finished his studies and moved on. Severus cannot bear to think of a time when Lucius is no longer a part of his daily life even at such a distance as he must maintain at Hogwarts. Though he is certain that the Malfoy heir will forget all about him when he has left Hogwarts, Severus does not know how he will ever do the same. The thought obsesses him, making him sullen and miserable even when he is given a set of self-correcting quills for Christmas...so much so that his father notices from his drunken stupor and taunts that perhaps Severus has gone and fallen in love with a pretty girl who has no time for him.

In love. It is a new idea to Severus, who has always scoffed at love as something for silly girls and pompous boys who want to feel important -- not anything that has to do with him. If his parents ever fancied themselves in love, it ended long before Severus was old enough to witness his father's weakness and his mother's inability to stand up to it. He has not associated his attachment to Lucius with the way adults pair off, nor even with the way the older students creep off to the Astronomy Tower together and exchange House rings.

Is he in love with Lucius? He has never heard of such a thing between two boys -- there are different names for what happens between two boys, all of them ugly. Lucius, he is sure, would dismiss the notion and find it childish if not disturbing that Severus had brought it up. Yet the idea does not seem wrong to him. He holds on to it when loneliness and misery threaten to overwhelm him, and the next time his father asks nastily whether Severus would prefer to be with some sweetheart from school, Severus replies defiantly that maybe he would.

His mother tries not to ask too many questions about Severus' life at Hogwarts, aware that he will only rebuff her interest. Still, she makes it clear that she is curious, perhaps even proud of him. He thinks that nothing would please his mother more than if he married into an old wizarding family, even though she herself married a worthless Muggle. One afternoon she asks him whether he is happier at school and seems strangely satisfied when he bursts out that he would much rather be there than at home.

The next afternoon when Severus returns to the cramped house from a few minutes of freedom walking by the filthy river, his mother is waiting for him in the kitchen with a peculiar expression on her face. "You've had an owl," she says, handing him a heavy cream-colored envelope bearing a dark green seal. Severus recognizes it at the same moment that his mother observes in a tone of anticipation, "That's the Malfoy crest."

"Yes," agrees Severus as disinterestedly as possible before turning and running to his room. He would tear open the envelope on the way but for his fear of ripping and spoiling the contents. "Dear Severus," he reads when at last he has removed the precious letter. Lucius, as always, is brief and to the point: he writes that he hopes Severus' holidays have been enjoyable, mentions that he is bored with his parents away from the family home in Wiltshire, and asks whether Severus might like to visit him for a few days if his own parents will spare him.

More than an hour passes before Severus allows himself to leave his room, for he is certain that his mother will be able to read his excitement if he asks her too eagerly for permission to visit Lucius and oh, if either of his parents should suspect the cause! But when he finally mentions that Lucius has invited him, making up an excuse about a Slytherin House committee on which he has volunteered to serve which the Head Boy naturally oversees, his mother is impressed that he has ingratiated himself with a Malfoy, determined that he will go to Wiltshire no matter what his father might think and eager to help him prepare.

When, hesitantly, Severus mentions that he thinks he ought to bring Lucius a Christmas present even though the actual day has past, his mother agrees despite the fact that they have almost no money to spare on a proper gift. Just as Severus is beginning to despair again, thinking that he will never be able to afford a proper present, his mother reminds him that she was a fine Potions student and suggests that perhaps they can make Felix Felicis together -- she has the base ingredients secretly brewing -- with Severus learning the steps to the complicated process as they work.

As expected, Severus' father objects to the visit even though he has no desire to spend any time with his son, whom he considers freakish if not queer. But for once his mother stands up to him, insisting that he should feel honored to have a son welcomed by a descendant of a wealthy, powerful wizarding family, which might improve all their fortunes. It makes Severus cringe to imagine Lucius meeting either of his parents and he is appalled when his mother insists that of course she must accompany him to Lucius' home -- Severus is too young to travel by himself, he will need help with his luggage, though Severus is certain that her primary interest is getting to see the Malfoys' house and to look at Abraxas' son with her own eyes. He dashes off a brief, embarrassed owl to Lucius outlining the situation, believing that the only greater humiliation than confessing to Lucius that his mother will be coming along would be to appear with her unannounced.

When, finally, his mother has departed, after a lengthy tour of the Malfoy mansion with Lucius patiently introducing all the people in the portraits, showing off the antique furniture and ornate chandeliers for an enthusiastic Eileen Snape, Severus feels a twinge of uncertainty. He had wanted so badly to be here, to see Lucius in his own home, yet he has no idea precisely what is expected of him. It is clear that Lucius is every bit as wealthy as his wildest imaginings. Severus cannot guess what some of the spoons on the table might be for, nor why there is a toilet-shaped fountain beside the bowl in his bathroom. And although the bed with its canopies and velvet pillows is magnificent, nearly the size of Severus' entire bedroom at home, he cannot help but feel a bit disappointed that he will not be sharing Lucius' room -- even a sleeping bag on the floor, like he had occasionally used when visiting his Muggle cousins, would have been welcome.

He is sitting on the vast strange bed feeling lost when there is a knock and Lucius comes in, having changed his robes from the formal attire in which he greeted them. "We'll have dinner in a few minutes," he announces. "Here, I wanted to bring you your Christmas present." Lucius hands him a small, heavy package wrapped in dark green cloth and a silver ribbon that flies off when Severus tugs one of its strings. Inside the package are a set of leather-bound books -- brand new, with their titles embossed in gold on the spine. Glancing at the titles, Severus realizes with a start that these are books which have been locked away or banned at Hogwarts; they concern the Dark Arts, including _Magick Moste Evile_, which is in the library's restricted section, and _Blood Philters_, which was on the list of forbidden Potions books. The last book, inexplicably, is on healing herbs, lavishly illustrated. "That's the one you can show your parents when they ask what I gave you for Christmas," says Lucius with a smile.

Severus is both thrilled and humbled that Lucius would give him such a gift. It is true that he will have to hide the books carefully away, but this is a gift that shows respect for Severus' abilities and for his discretion. "I only brought you something much smaller," he mumbles, removing the potion which his mother had poured into an old cologne bottle with fancy decorations. "It's Felix Felicis. I made it for you."

He thinks that this sounds very immature after Lucius' wonderful gift, but Lucius beams as he takes the small bottle to hold up to the light. "Felix Felicis! You must be an even better Potions student than Slughorn said you were -- few seventh-years could manage this. I'm going to save it for a very special occasion, I promise you."

"You know that you're not allowed to use it for exams or..." Blushing as Lucius looks over at him, Severus mumbles, "Yes, of course you do."

"Do you really think that I'd bother to cheat on exams?" asks Lucius somewhat sternly. "What is key with exams, as you will realize by the time you sit your NEWTs, is to excel in the areas where it is most important, and if you cheat then it will only hurt you later. As for the others, they are unimportant. Who cares whether you know the history of dark wizards in Bulgaria centuries ago?"

"Yes," agrees Severus, "It was a stupid thing to say."

"I've told you before that it is only foolish to be dishonest with me or with yourself," Lucius says mildly. Severus still feels chastized and childish but he thinks too that Lucius likes to teach him, and does not expect him to be on equal footing. "But come, we can talk after we eat. Mother refused to serve plum pudding this year, she couldn't find any currants that she found satisfactory, so I told the house elves to make it for us instead."

As if he suspects that Severus was not fed a proper Christmas dinner at home, Lucius seems to have requested everything Severus knows other families have for such a meal: roast beef, mince pie, custard, wassail, even a cake decorated in royal icing with scenes of skaters magically dancing over the marzipan. Perhaps Lucius simply does not enjoy Christmas with his family and wants to celebrate it again when he can make all the choices for the meal; either way, it is the best food Severus has ever eaten. At first he tries to display the same restraint he would show at Hogwarts or if his family were invited to the home of his Muggle relatives, for his mother always tells him not to make a pig of himself, but when Lucius begins to put second and third helpings on his plate, he accepts them gratefully.

After the meal Lucius takes him for a walk in the formal gardens, though the afternoon light is failing already and Severus can feel the bitter chill biting into his skin through his thin, unlined cloak. The ornamental plants are unfamiliar to him -- his own family's small garden consists only of vegetables they can eat -- and everything seems dried and withered for the winter. But Lucius does not seem to mind, showing him the pentagonal design and walking him to the entrance of the grotto.

"Next year you must come before the solstice, and we'll visit the Giant's Dance and watch the sun set over the altar from the heel stone," he says. Severus tries not to stare at him. Next year? Next year Lucius will have graduated and will likely be working for Gringotts or the Ministry of Magic, in London or anywhere else he chooses, without time for a boy still finishing his studies at Hogwarts. "There are carolers who come through the...are you cold?" Suddenly Lucius' eyes have narrowed, taking in Severus' frayed cloak and the lips he is trying to keep from shivering. "Come back to the house. You're meant to tell me these things!"

Inside, the elves have fires going in nearly every room, even those which seem to be in disuse like the large parlor with a dusty harpsichord and a strange high-ceilinged room with hunt trophies including a hippogriff and numerous species of bat. "My grandfather's," explains Lucius with disapproval in his voice. "All killed for sport, not because he intended to use their bodies for any purpose. It seems to me to be a wasteful hobby; he could have been hunting werewolves or trapping skrewts."

Severus nods noncommittally; even by the hearth, he still feels chilled, and he wishes keenly that Lucius would take him to one of the many elegant sofas, put him under a blanket and rub his body until he was warm. "You aren't really interested in this," Lucius guesses, seeing Severus' halfhearted acquiescence, and then, "Father gave me a miniature wizard's chess set for Christmas. It's in my bedroom. Would you like to play?"

"Yes, please," says Severus at once. He has very little skill as a chess player but he would have accepted any excuse to see Lucius' bedroom. He follows Lucius up a staircase, blushing and averting his eyes as the paintings on the wall look at him and whisper to one another. Lucius seems to have an entire wing to himself on the second floor, with his own library and an entire room that seems to serve as a closet.

By the standards of the rest of the house, the bedroom is surprisingly intimate; one large window overlooks the grounds and two small tables stand on either side of the headboard, but otherwise the room is nearly devoid of furnishings apart from large cushions and a single, locked cabinet. The canopy over the bed is far more lavish than those at Hogwarts, with thick velvet sashes in addition to the twisted silk cords that hold the curtains back. The chess set is on the table further from the door; Severus walks around the bed to reach it, but Lucius sits on the covers and swings his legs up, leaning over the pillows.

"You see, the pieces are all different dragon species," he says, holding one out to Severus. The little blue dragon twists in his palm and breathes fire. "Very useful for lighting a lamp when you've forgotten your wand," continues Lucius with a smile, taking the miniature reptile and holding it to the sconce above the table, where the candle inside flickers to life. Then he replaces the chess piece, draws out his wand and orders all the other lights in the room to dim.

"It looks better in the dark," Lucius explains, moving over so that Severus can sit beside him on the bed. "That Vipertooth can light up the whole room -- she's the queen, you know." When he leans over to point, his hair brushes Severus' face, making Severus shiver. "Oh...you're still cold. Give me your hand...your fingers are like icicles. Come back here, under the covers."

Severus' hands are cold because he is nervous, not because he is still chilly, but now they are between Lucius' and he is being pressed against the pillows, with the heavy feather-filled mantle being pushed over him. "Let me warm you up," says Lucius softly, leaning in closer. _Please_, thinks Severus so hard that he thinks surely the man must hear him, or perhaps he can read his face, because he bends and brushes a kiss across Severus' mouth.

With a moan Severus kisses Lucius back, trying to retrieve a hand to pull him closer, but Lucius keeps the cold fingers between his own, rubbing them as he keeps placing soft, intoxicating kisses on Severus' lips. No matter how many times Lucius does this, Severus thinks he will never be able to resist it, never control his body's helpless response, with each time like the first time. If he had any doubts about whether he was in love with Lucius -- if he had any desire to convince himself that it was only about pleasure and power -- Lucius is kissing them away.

"Are you warm enough yet to take these off?" inquires Lucius, tugging at Severus' robes. He nods enthusiastically, beginning to unfasten his own clothes because it's fastest that way, while Lucius smiles approvingly and starts to take off his things as well. Soon they are naked together under the covers and Severus shivers once more as Lucius' skin slides along his own. "Would you like me to show you a way that you can keep warm and we can enjoy each other at the same time?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Turn around. No, not that way. Get under the covers with your face toward the foot of the bed." Obediently Severus crawls toward Lucius' feet, the dim light of the room fading as he slips into balmy softness. He can smell Lucius very strongly like this -- Lucius' prick has a distinct scent, earthy and a little salty -- and even if he could not see at all, he would know that Lucius was hard. As he shifts closer he feels Lucius roll to his side, reaching to hold his buttocks and bending one of his own legs up. "Turn, here. Yes -- like that. Now, I'm going to put my mouth on you and if you want you can try to do exactly what I'm doing, all right?"

"Yes ohh!" It begins even before Severus can speak, the wet warmth of a tongue against the head of his prick, flicking up and down and teasing him until he can feel fluid leaking out. He licks Lucius in the same way, delighted in how much stronger the scent and sensations are in this enclosed place. There is nothing he can see or feel but what Lucius is doing to him in the bed and what he is doing to Lucius in turn. Fingers are kneading his bottom, teasing along the crack, and when he does the same to Lucius his lips are rewarded with sudden wetness dripping from Lucius' prick, hot and sweet-smelling in the darkness.

"Mmm. I want you in my mouth," murmurs Lucius, withdrawing a hand from beneath Severus and using it to push the foreskin back. He keeps it on Severus' prick, holding the shaft steady for his mouth which circles the tip and begins to apply gentle suction. Severus raises his head a bit by pushing his shoulder underneath himself, finds the cock-head and tastes the rich musky dampness exposed by his fingers.

It is not the most comfortable position in which he has sucked Lucius, and he feels a faint warning scrape of Lucius' teeth against him when he closes his mouth incautiously, trying to mimic Lucius' movements. Yet it is one of the most exhilarating things he has ever done -- being in Lucius' bed, completely submerged beneath the covers, with Lucius filling his mouth and stimulating his prick at the same time. He thinks that they must look like two snakes devouring each other's tails, the alchemical symbol of balance and eternal cycles.

With a soft pop Lucius removes his lips from Severus' prick. "Roll onto your back," he whispers, pushing on Severus' hip to encourage him. Soon he is flat on his back with his prick poking up into Lucius' mouth while Lucius rocks in and out of _his_ mouth, covering him almost completely. It is an overwhelming feeling, as if Lucius is claiming every part of his body, and Severus welcomes it: he spreads his legs a bit wider, planting his feet on the pillows, and tilts his head so that Lucius can thrust further into his throat if he wishes.

And at first Lucius does, but the moment Severus makes a choking noise while trying to catch his breath, he stops, settling his weight more completely on Severus and concentrating on sucking him steadily. Even with Lucius' prick bobbing in his mouth, Severus cannot distract himself from such an onslaught of attention, and he must part his lips to cry out when he begins to spurt into Lucius' mouth.

Lucius' prick twitches as the enclosed heat of Severus' tongue and palate gives way to cooler breath panting around it. He does not let go right away, not until Severus has recovered his breath and is experimenting deliberately with alternately sucking and blowing on the eager prick, but when Severus reaches around his thigh to try to touch the spot he knows Lucius loves to have rubbed, Lucius lets out a soft grunt and fills Severus' mouth with his slick bitter come.

Even when it is over and he has gulped down the unpleasantly hot seed, Severus does not want to move. He loves lying here in bed in the Malfoy mansion with Lucius filling his senses, his smell and taste and the sounds he makes and the feel of his skin more than compensating for the near-darkness beneath the blankets. He does not want to remember home, where his father's drunken breath and his mother's quiet shuffle dominate all the small rooms in the house; he does not want to think about Hogwarts, where he has only stolen moments with this man who is the most important person in his life.

"Are you all right down there?" asks Lucius, clambering off his body and turning to crawl down beside him. He makes a sniffing noise as if it's too humid or smells offensive, but he drops next to Severus, lying hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder as he leans over to kiss him. The taste is odd...because, realizes Severus, Lucius tastes like him, just as he tastes like Lucius. They keep kissing until he can no longer tell the difference.

"Let's turn around, I'm starting to smother down here," says Lucius humorously and helps Severus turn around, wriggling until both their heads have popped out of the covers and onto the pillows. "You're quite flushed -- warmer now?" When Severus nods, Lucius turns to bark, "Dobby!" A moment later a house elf appears, and Lucius says, "Bring us some butterbeer. And some of the Christmas candy."

After the elf is gone, Lucius sits back with a sigh. "Accio chessboard," he pronounces. The wizard's chess set rises from the table and shoots over to them, hovering until Lucius catches it and sets it down between their legs on the bed.

"I know it's early, but it's already dark and cold out there and I'm feeling very comfortable here," he tells Severus. "Fancy a game? I'm not really very good at this, but you can be the New World dragons; their moves are more exotic and sometimes they refuse to let you put a piece in danger..."

They play with the fierce little dragons until it is fully night, with Dobby bringing them holiday sausages and cheeses and mulled wine. Lucius wins one game but the next is very competitive, particularly after Severus' knight nearly sets the bed on fire. Severus can feel his eyelids growing heavy but he forces himself to stay alert, fearing that as soon as Lucius notices his drowsiness, he will be banished to the lonely, decorous guest room.

Eventually Lucius yawns, and with a wave of his wand he sends the chessboard back to its spot on the table. "I'm sorry to be such a dull host, but I'm afraid I'm getting sleepy." He smiles winningly at Severus, slides down against the pillows and pats the bed beside himself. "Let's get some rest, and in the morning I'll show you all the illegal potions my father keeps in his bathroom cabinet."

Afraid to move until Lucius takes his arm and tugs him over, Severus lies back as Lucius orders the last candle out and takes a deep, shaky breath. He is here, in this magnificent house with all its secrets, with Lucius, alone with Lucius. It is as if someone had decided to make up for all the unhappy holidays of his past in one single glorious moment.

"Goodnight," murmurs Lucius, settling beside him, and Severus replies, "Yes...happy Christmas."


	6. Between Terms

Severus wakes with an erection. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that puffs of air -- some warm, some cool -- are drifting over it, as if someone is blowing on it.

He opens his eyes. Only the palest light of dawn illuminates the room, for it is early and very near to the shortest day of the year. Still, he can see the outline of the shape beneath the covers in bed beside him and the ends of long blond hair trapped by the rumpled edge of the blanket. Lucius has teased him to alertness. Reaching under the blanket, Severus encounters a handful of sleek hair and runs his fingers through it, thinking that he would not be surprised to be shattered into realization by a crash or a shout from his father that all of this has been a dream.

But Lucius squirms as if the hand in his hair is tickling him and begins to emerge from the covers. "Good morning," he says as he crawls up to the pillows, fingers continuing the work his breath has left off. His hair is wildly disarrayed and his breath is slightly sour with sleep; nonetheless Severus thinks that he has never in his life been so happy to see anyone as he is to see Lucius now, and kisses him urgently. With a soft laugh Lucius climbs on top of him, letting the weight of his body trap Severus while he moves their pricks together. His hands find Severus' wrists and pin them near his shoulders as he raises himself to look at Severus' face.

"Did I remember to tell you that this bed is enchanted?" he asks.

"N-no," Severus replies with a breathless little moan, trying to rub up against Lucius without pressing hard enough to risk dislodging him. "But I'm not surprised."

"Well, it is," confirms Lucius. "Locomotor!" The previously still curtains suddenly begin to move, much as the cords had become animated by a spell in Lucius' bed at Hogwarts, but here the canopy is much more elaborate, with fabrics of different textures layered both in the drapes themselves and in their bindings. The material sweeps over the bed, stroking Severus' hair and all of Lucius' exposed skin. "If you'd like, I'll show you how it works." Nodding, Severus prods himself against Lucius who is as hard as he is. He loves the feeling of Lucius holding him down, but Lucius lets go of his wrists and shifts around to his side. "Perhaps you should watch at first, in case there's anything you don't like."

The opportunity to watch Lucius pleasure himself is ample compensation for being released, and Severus shifts eagerly to the foot of the bed, turning to look at Lucius who sits up against the pillows. His arms spread to the side to seek out the most rope-like of the fabric bindings that were formerly twisted together to tie back the curtains. As soon as he catches them both in his hands and tugs, the cords respond by wrapping around his wrists and tying firm knots, with a layer of velvet sash between the skin and the rope, keeping his arms spread and slightly elevated. Layers of material -- some gauzy, some heavy velvet, and one which looks like flexible leather -- swoop down from the canopy and begin to stroke Lucius' chest and torso, the heaviest landing with slapping sounds that leave faint red marks on his thighs.

"Oh," breathes Severus, who is too transfixed even to touch himself though his groin throbs demandingly. Lucius throws his head back and groans, which may be a signal or it may be pure coincidence that at that precise moment one of the soft ties wraps itself like a snake around Lucius' prick and begins to move up and down sinuously. Lucius' hair waves around his face with the swaying of the softest, most ethereal curtains and his chest flushes where the heavier velvet generates friction. The leather is still landing occasional slaps on his thighs and buttocks when thick cords wrap beneath his arms to lift his bottom off the bed.

Lucius' eyes crack open, and following their gaze Severus realizes that there is a small mirror angled within the canopy so that Lucius can see himself bound and aroused, being pulled over the edge by that relentless twisting fabric on his prick and the stimulation everywhere else on his body. He is going to make a great spattering mess when he comes...then he groans and does so, spurting into the air and wetting several of the fabric ties. It is the most excruciatingly arousing thing Severus has ever seen, and he thinks that if he had been touching himself at the moment Lucius' prick sprayed the first jet out, he would have come himself.

The fabric strips gradually slow their attentions, unwinding from Lucius' prick and wiping him clean. The ropes binding his arms lower him gently to the bed and unravel, leaving him flushed and glowing on the pillows. Severus has never imagined a display so shameless nor so erotic. Crawling forward, he leans over Lucius to kiss him...

Lucius mutters something, and all the material swaying softly from the canopy goes into motion at once. Severus finds himself wrapped and lifted as if he had unexpectedly fallen into a hammock with thick velvet lining and a large hole just where his prick is sticking out. Smiling up at his startled expression, Lucius raises himself against the pillows and reaches out for the sides of the sling in which Severus is suspended, tugging him forward until he is suspended nearly vertically, facing the wall with his feet brushing the bed. He does not understand what Lucius means to do until he feels a hand and then a tongue on his stiff, leaking prick...

Crying out, Severus thrashes in the makeshift cradle, feeling different textures of material caress his chest and thighs. His hair is falling forward into his eyes but he cannot propel his arms forward to push it back. Lucius is sucking him purposefully, not teasing, and his balls are already growing tight...he is as restrained by the gravity that presses him into the sashes as if they had tied his wrists, and he can only cry out helplessly the moment before he pumps a hot gush of seed into Lucius' mouth.

The ties hold Severus steady until he has finished and sags bonelessly against them. Then they begin to lower him to the bed, slipping away one by one as Lucius reaches up to guide him down and lets Severus come to rest on his own chest. "Did you like that?" he asks in a naughty, intimate voice to which Severus can only respond with a nod and moan. "I've never tried that before. I've never had anyone else in my bed who was so very enthusiastic about being restrained."

Despite the satisfaction radiating all through his body, Severus has a momentary qualm about these words. He does not think he is enthusiastic about being restrained; what he loves is being restrained in Lucius' bed, for Lucius' pleasure, and with anyone else in the world he doubts he would enjoy it at all but consider it degrading instead. He doubts that he can express this to Lucius, no more than he can tell Lucius that he thinks he is in love, but he reminds himself to consider it later, when he also considers the fact that Lucius, who apparently likes to be restrained purely for the feel of it, has not brought any other boys here to test out and share his fantasies.

His thoughts are interrupted by a kiss from Lucius, whose breath no longer smells of sleep but of Severus' come. "Let's go wash up and have breakfast. Then I can show you the very wicked artifacts my grandfather collected."

It surprises Severus to realize that Lucius' parents not only do not share a bedroom but scarcely a wing of the house. Lucius had skipped the private rooms when taking Severus' mother through the elegant parlors and libraries, so this is the first Severus has seen of how the elder Malfoys live. His own parents, whom he has never thought of as affectionate, still share a small bedroom except when his father has passed out on the sofa, and it troubles him to think that perhaps the Malfoys with all their wealth are not particularly happy in their marriage, either -- more than it troubles him to discover that Lucius' relatives with all their wealth apparently have a fascination with the Dark Arts.

Lucius' father indeed has a collection of illegal potions in his locked and disguised bathroom cabinet, including draughts to lengthen life and love potions with no known antidote. The bottles are stoppered and labeled, and Severus has the sense that they are being hoarded rather than used. "Watch this," says Lucius, pulling a phial from his pocket, uncorking one of the love potions and pouring out the contents, leaving only a drop in the original bottle. Then he utters the incantation for the Refilling Charm and waves his wand, sealing his father's potion and pocketing his own. "This kind makes you feel everything more strongly," he grins at Severus. "And you won't believe what it does for your stamina."

"Won't your father be able to tell that the seal was broken?" asks Severus, who knows that even a brief exposure to air can ruin some potions.

"He'll never notice." Lucius waves a hand. "I think he keeps these to convince himself that he could control people if he wanted to, not because he plans to do anything with them. Let's go to the dungeon -- anything the Ministry of Magic would seize if those Mudblood idiots in charge ever start investigating the old wizarding families is locked away down there."

And indeed, below the wine cellar and the vast storage rooms filled with dusty furniture and trunks, the mansion has a dungeon complete with a locked gate and iron bars. "It's mostly for show -- Slytherin nostalgia," Lucius explains. "But if you know its secret..." He slips a key into a decoration on the wall and suddenly the floor begins to move, dropping them into an even lower room. "Don't touch anything," warns Lucius. "That jewelry is cursed. The crown belonged to a queen who was beheaded, and everyone who has ever worn that diamond has died in a fall..."

The room is crammed with objects, some unbelievably cruel -- a piano enchanted to crush a player's fingers, a crystal pyramid that blinds the viewer who has the misfortune to shine a light directly upon it -- and some intriguing for other reasons, like a handwritten draft of an unfinished book of love spells by Casanova and a deck of cards that, spread correctly, forms what appears to be a treasure map of southern France. "Why is this hidden away?" he asks Lucius.

"Because it was stolen from a Muggle knight, and the gold paid for much of what's upstairs," Lucius replies drolly. "All families, even the ancient purebloods, had to get their wealth from somewhere. Before my father dies he will tell me where he has hidden the most valuable of the Malfoy heirlooms, so that I can pass them on one day to my own son."

Severus considers this, focusing on the jewel-studded handle of a sword that flips itself around when he reaches for it and very nearly cuts his throat before Lucius tugs him back. "Do you want to get married?" he inquires cautiously.

"It isn't really a question of _want_, is it?" responds Lucius. "Of course I want a child who will follow me. It's our responsibility to father children to counteract all the weak blood, the Muggle influences..."

"You know that my father's a Muggle, don't you?" asks Severus in a low voice.

"Of course I do. But your mother's a witch -- captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones team, wasn't she?" This makes Severus gape. He had never thought of talent at Gobstones to be particularly desirable; it wasn't, after all, like being a Quidditch champion. "There's nothing wrong with your wizarding skills. It isn't as if you're a Mudblood. And you were sorted into Slytherin; the Hat must have seen the potential for greatness in you."

Even as he flushes under this resounding approval from Lucius, Severus thinks that the Hat does not always seem to choose Slytherins based on potential for greatness. Some of them seem to be chosen precisely because they make good minions, with no particular skills of their own besides willingness to aid those who are stronger. Some of the older boys with whom Lucius associates seem, from a distance, to fall into that category; they are brutish and, when Lucius is not nearby, often rude and nasty to younger students, even to one another if the opportunity arises. Severus has never wished to befriend such Slytherins of his own year and he guesses that Lucius must play a part among those boys, rather than discussing some of the interests he has shown Severus.

"When you marry and have children..." Lucius is continuing as if this is a foregone conclusion, talking about the things Severus could teach his children about the proper channeling of education and ambition, and Severus must force himself not to make a face that will show his distraction. He has no desire to marry, ever, and it makes him unhappy to think that Lucius will, even though it isn't as if he could ever have hoped to continue to see Lucius after this brief wonderful time when they are both too young for other obligations. "...if Dumbledore continues this foolish practice of inviting every Muggle who shows any capacity for levitating pebbles to Hogw... _Don't touch that!_"

Severus freezes, hand outstretched halfway. The small onyx button lying atop a dark circle in the corner of a table had hardly seemed to belong in this room, and he had wondered whether it had simply fallen from someone's clothing and been placed here by mistake. "That belonged to Grindelwald," hisses Lucius, and Severus gasps. Grindelwald's is a name spoken in hushed tones, as if it might be possible to summon the dark wizard back into the world. He had not guessed that the rather eclectic collection of objects kept by the Malfoys might include such a thing.

"Why do you have it?" he whispers.

"Because my grandf...it's a family heritance," says Lucius shortly. Severus can never recall such shirking from Lucius before -- Lucius is either very direct or an excellent liar most of the time -- and he knows better than to press the question, but remains perturbed at both the evasion and the possible connection between the Malfoys and Grindelwald.

"But come on, I didn't show you the stables," adds Lucius, leading Severus from the secret chamber before he can ask any additional questions. "Listen, I have a cloak that I want to give you. It doesn't fit me any more, and I have no younger brothers -- it would be a waste not to use it." Then Severus is distracted, protesting that he cannot accept such a gift, even used, for he and Lucius are very nearly of a height and any cloak that would fit him would still fit Lucius, though secretly he is thrilled at the prospect of wearing something that had belonged to Lucius even when they are apart, and the secrets of the dungeon are forgotten.

Severus can scarcely remain in a saddle while Lucius is a skilled and elegant rider, yet they spend the brisk afternoon riding to the edges of the property with a picnic the elves have prepared, which they eat atop Lucius' cloak near the edge of a glassy lake. It is difficult for Severus to comprehend that all this will one day belong to someone he knows. He does not feel envy, for all of this is beyond his most grandiose fantasies; he wishes it might be possible to live in one of the outbuildings, perhaps serving as the Malfoys' personal apothecary. Of course in such a scenario he could never be invited to Lucius' bedroom, but at least he would see Lucius regularly, whereas if he were to take a job in a shop or working at St. Mungo's, for instance, it would be extremely difficult even to converse with Lucius.

Back at the house they play with a solid gold set of Gobstones and sit in front of a fireplace with Severus' new books, where Lucius points out matters of particular interest, such as the fact that unspoken levitation charms leave a victim no time to prepare and are therefore more effective than those using spoken incantations. After the evening meal, Lucius again invites Severus to his bedroom for a game of chess, and Severus rushes back to his unused guest bedroom to wash and change into his newest robes.

Lucius is waiting for him in nothing but a silk dressing gown. As soon as Severus arrives, he beckons him to the bed, kisses him until Severus is moaning with need and carefully removes his clothes. "Do you know what this is?" he asks, pressing a small jar into Severus' hand. The container holds a slippery potion made from crocodile hearts, cactus pulp and ginseng. "I want to feel your fingers inside me," murmurs Lucius. "Do you want that?"

Severus sucks in a breath, trying to hold steady enough to nod. He has never dared more than a single finger, terrified of hurting Lucius, though he has tried opening himself, preparing for the day when Lucius will ask to fuck him, and imagined the feeling of Lucius tight and hot and soft around him. "Yes -- I want to try -- "

It is painfully arousing when Lucius gets on hands and knees with his arse raised in the air, a perfect image of submission, even though he is instructing Severus all the while, "Make sure you have plenty on your fingers, if it gets on the bed we can Scourgify later -- taste your finger, you'll see, it's sweet -- now if you touch me, oh, right there yes that's -- oh Severus you don't have to put your mouth there if you -- ohh..."

The potion is indeed sweet, though the heady, musky smell of Lucius overwhelms it when he puts his tongue just below the hole, steels himself and licks up, telling himself that the noises Lucius is making will make it worthwhile even if he decides that it's disgusting. It is not: the taste is strange but not unpleasant, the furrows amusing to explore, and when he finally dares to push his tongue in deeper, the clenching and urgent whimpers thrill Severus. When eventually he shifts back it is because his neck is growing uncomfortable, not because he wants to stop performing this intimate act.

He is still nervous with his fingers, grateful for once for his half-bitten fingernails, and when Lucius groans and says "Another," he feels great trepidation pushing the bigger middle finger in alongside the pointer. He can see a circle of red where he is stretching Lucius and it frightens him, yet Lucius presses back eagerly, directing Severus to curve his fingers and "push in just a little ah! That, did you feel that -- ohh right yes not too hard..."

Severus lets himself imagine, for a moment, that it is his prick and not his fingers thrusting in and out of Lucius, who has his hips raised high above the mattress and is shamelessly moaning his enjoyment. If he had a way to lock this feeling away to save for later, he would. His prick is sliding up and down on the warm skin of the back of Lucius' thigh and the lower curve of his arse, in the same rhythm as his fingers inside Lucius, and he feels it throb every time Lucius moans.

"You can put it in if you want," says Lucius softly.

Severus thinks at first that he must have misheard or imagined the words -- Lucius cannot have made that offer, can he? But Lucius' hand is moving on the mattress, pushing the small jar back toward Severus.

"You'll need quite a lot, all over your cock. Don't try to rush. It will be very slippery at first and if you try to push in too fast, you'll end up thrusting along the crack and making a mess on my back. Take it very slowly, just the head at first -- don't worry if you feel like you're going to come, it's very hard to control the first time..."

Lucius' voice is low and calm, almost hypnotic, as Severus withdraws his shaking fingers from Lucius and opens the jar, scooping the potion into his palm and beginning to stroke it onto himself. He tries not to allow himself to think; he is certain that Lucius does not want him to think, which is why Lucius is speaking in that soothing and distracting murmur, but it is impossible not to shudder from the thrills that spark through him from knowing that Lucius has just invited him to _fuck_ him, telling him exactly what to do. He is afraid of ejaculating in his own slick hand before he can begin; he is terrified that he will hurt Lucius, even though it is absurd to think that Lucius would have told him to do this if Lucius was not ready for it and did not want it.

And what will be the price? Will Lucius then demand that Severus lie beneath him, open and welcoming, whether or not Severus feels ready? Will this be the end of his time with Lucius if he fails? He is trembling all over as he moves against Lucius, who feels it and turns to look over his shoulder at him.

"Severus, if you don't want to, then tell me so. I thought that we would both enjoy it and I doubted whether you would ever ask." There is only a hint of chiding in Lucius' voice; he sounds disappointed, not in Severus' lack of courage, but that he is to be denied this opportunity for pleasure. Despite the shock that has frozen Severus' other muscles, his prick is just as hard as before, straining toward Lucius, heedless of the consequences. "If you'd rather do something else..."

"I'll try." Severus can scarcely recognize his own voice; it feels as though his heart is beating in his throat. Lucius gives him an encouraging smile, then lowers his head again, lifting his hips and spreading his legs into a posture so inviting that Severus cannot help but moan. With his prick in his hand to hold it steady, he nudges the opening, but it does not part immediately, and when he pushes harder his prick slips up the crack as his body slams into Lucius.

"Try again," says Lucius, undeterred, reaching back with a hand to pull one of his buttocks to the side, opening himself more widely and making Severus tremble anew with arousal and terror. "Press down a bit, you aren't going to hurt me, it's quite flexible, make it open for you..."

It is very likely, thinks Severus, that he will come just from listening to Lucius talk about it. Again he touches his prick to the raised pucker around the hole, prodding it, wriggling against the soft redness just inside, and then it happens: the tight ring of muscle widens for him, letting the head of his prick push in. Lucius makes a choked noise but holds still for him, and now momentum and the slipperiness of the potion work in Severus' favor, easing him inside. He feels tight heat surround the top of his prick, a sensation completely unlike Lucius' hand or even Lucius' mouth.

_I'm fucking him_, Severus thinks and at once he is in free-fall, his entire body reduced to the surging in his prick, which thrusts in until it meets resistance but is already overflowing inside Lucius, _coming_ inside Lucius; he convulses, very nearly screaming, unable to separate the pleasure of release from the pleasure of what caused it, doing this, being allowed to do this, by Lucius, with Lucius...he is sobbing before it is finished, great explosions of air bursting from his lungs though he can't remember inhaling, and he is grateful for it because if he could speak he might utter something unforgivable.

"Are you all right?" asks Lucius, tilting his head back without twisting to look at him. Severus realizes that Lucius is trying not to dislodge him before he is ready to withdraw. When Severus does not speak, he continues in a shockingly ordinary voice, "It gets easier. Sometimes I think it's easiest if one's first time is with a stranger one will never have to see again, but that's somehow impersonal, don't you think?"

"I...oh..." It is impossible to formulate a reply, let alone to speak it, while he is still _inside_ Lucius. Very carefully he begins to pull back, not wanting the moment to end and also not wanting to remain for an instant longer than he is welcome. His softening prick is tugged briefly by the tight opening, making the head tingle as it slides back out into the cooler air. He rests against Lucius' back while the man shifts beneath him, straightening his knees so that they are both lying flat, with Severus draped over Lucius' relaxed body. After a moment he musters his courage and asks, "Is that what you did?"

He can feel Lucius' shoulders tense and curses himself inwardly for having asked such a private question, but a moment later he can feel Lucius nodding, the muscles in his shoulders shifting as damp hair cascades against Severus' chin. "I acted as though I'd done it before. I wanted to get it out of the way. Perhaps it was careless to waste it on a stranger but at the time it seemed safer."

He does not say safer than what and Severus does not dare ask, though he is intensely curious now. Is it possible that Lucius Malfoy was ever attracted to someone he could not have? Or does Lucius simply mean that the prejudices among his peers made it wiser not to seek out the sort of contact he desired from anyone who knew them? Pondering this, Severus is quiet for too long, and when Lucius twists suddenly to look at him, he slips off the man's back to lie at his side.

Lucius' mouth is a thin line, and something behind his eyes has closed off; Severus cannot tell whether he is angry, bitter or -- is it possible? -- uneasy. In a voice that betrays nothing, he asks Severus, "You aren't sorry about this, are you?"

"No!" Severus avows fervently. "I mean, I'm sorry I couldn't wait and I'm sure it was terrible..."

He knows he is babbling, but the dark expression dissolves from Lucius' features as he speaks. "No it wasn't," protests Lucius mildly, reaching over to stroke his hair. "I wasn't expecting you to perform like a professional. I like your spontaneity. Haven't you noticed?" The words make Severus' face burn as Lucius continues, "Now that you know how it feels, you'll want to do it again soon, and you'll want it to last longer, so you'll work on your control. And when you see how much I like having you there, I expect you'll want to experience it from the other side as well. It may have seemed fast but I plan to keep enjoying it for a long time."

Again Severus is afraid to speak; he is certain that if he opens his mouth, he will tell Lucius he loves him and ruin everything. Instead he lowers his head and sucks one of Lucius' nipples. The little hairs around it feel scratchy on his tongue and catch in his teeth but the center knots into a bump that makes it easier to hold between his lips. Bending his elbow, he brushes his fingertips across Lucius' other nipple and tugs it gently until it has stiffened like the first, then switches his mouth for his free hand and suckles the dry nipple.

The feeling of Lucius' hand on the back of his neck distracts him momentarily. Severus thinks that Lucius must want him to stop, but the hand does not try to urge his head away; instead it strokes through his hair, keeping him close, remaining when he once again switches mouth and hand on the nipples. One of Lucius' arms stretches upward, over their heads, letting him arch, exposing his armpit.

It takes a little while for Severus to work up the courage to move his mouth from the nipple alongside the thick patch of hair. He fears recoiling automatically, but the taste and scent do not offend him; rather, it is delightful to touch Lucius so intimately, just as it was licking his arse. The underarm seems to be quite sensitive, but then Lucius seems to be sensitive everywhere. It had never occurred to Severus that so many parts of his body might be receptive to pleasure.

Wriggling downward, he pushes at Lucius' hip until the man arches toward him, giving Severus access to his still-hard prick. It looks too big to fit comfortably in his body but Severus has thought the same thing of his own prick, though it evidently did not cause Lucius enough pain to mar his erection. It has grown easier to take more of Lucius into his mouth, and he lets him glide toward his throat, bobbing his head and sucking until Lucius comes.

"As I'm sure I've told you before, what you lack in experience you make up for in enthusiasm," the man tells him with a humming, satisfied sigh when Severus has released his prick and moved up beside him. "Come here." Warm arms wrap around him and a kiss falls onto his forehead. "I knew I'd have a nicer holiday if I invited you."

There are no words with which Severus can explain what this holiday means to him -- it would require that he reveal too much about his home and family, things he cannot confess to Lucius. "Thank you," he says humbly, thickly, and pretends to be exhausted from _sex fucking making love_, sliding his face against Lucius' neck.

"I know I'm depriving you of being at home but I promise to make it worthwhile. Will your parents spare you through the turn of the year?" Severus thinks that he will tell his parents any lie necessary to make this happen; he nods, and feels Lucius purr a little. "Good. I was thinking that we could celebrate."


	7. End and Beginning

It is dawn on the last day of the old year. There are still wizards in the world who follow the ancient ways and count from the Day of the Dead, but even among the old families, most celebrate the turn of the calendar a week after Christmas with music and costumed revels. Severus has never been to a proper New Year celebration and is listening eagerly to Lucius' descriptions.

"It's up to you, then, what we do this afternoon," says Lucius, stretching across his pillow to reach a square of cheese on the tray Dobby has brought for them. He and Severus have spent the morning in bed, though they have hardly been inactive, and Severus' thighs still feel sore from straining to thrust up into Lucius who had been suspended from the canopy over him. "The sword dancing in Amesbury is quite a spectacle, but I think you'd be more impressed by the Mummers. Some of them," he smiles wickedly, "sacrifice a real victim and bring him back from the dead with dark magic."

"That's not possible," retorts Severus, swallowing a mouthful of porridge. There are cakes and fruit and black pudding on the tray, yet he finds an odd delight in eating something so familiar from home for breakfast while sitting in Lucius' bed, which still smells faintly of semen and the scented cloths Lucius summoned to clean them off afterward. "He can't really have been dead."

"But he is. I've seen it. There are secrets about death that you won't find in the books at Hogwarts, you know. It's said that Nicolas Flamel succeeded in creating the Elixir of Life, and he's a friend of the Headmaster's -- don't you think there's a reason Dumbledore's still so overbearing at his age? But he's not sharing the secret of immortality."

Lucius sounds surprisingly vehement. He is still very young, seemingly in excellent health; he has many years before age will begin to take its toll. Or, then again, considers Severus, perhaps Lucius has more reasons than himself to wish to live forever, with this beautiful house and seemingly endless possibilities before him, though Lucius will not gain dominion until his father is no more. It is a disturbing thought, for although Severus has occasionally wished his own father ill, he has never considered reasons for plotting his demise. Sometimes Lucius puts frightening thoughts in his head.

"All right, then, we'll go to see the Mummers," Severus nods, putting his bowl back on the tray and lifting a boiled egg. "Because I still think there must be a trick to it. Draught of Living Death of something."

"We'll see." Lucius taps the egg with the tip of his wand. Instantly the shell crumbles away, leaving Severus holding a damp, limp, dead chick in his hands. He gasps and tosses it away, but even as it is flung across the bed, Lucius points his wand and calls, "Glisco vividus!" A fuzzy yellow chick lands on the mattress, flapping its miniscule wings and appearing startled, though no more so than Severus, who tries to keep his horror from showing on his face. Lucius peers at him and says, "Don't look like that. _That_ was a trick. The elves will take it to the hatchery and soon it will be crowing."

It was not a funny trick, thinks Severus as he dresses. He has no particular fondness for fluffy animals, but apart from the chick, it was not a nice thing to do to _him_. Perhaps Lucius meant it as a warning, for if holding a dead chicken disgusted him, how will he react to the sight of a dead human body, even if it is a trick? He does not want to show weakness -- not in front of Lucius and certainly not where there might be other witnesses.

Because Severus cannot Apparate, Lucius has the carriage brought out and, at Severus' request, takes the reins himself with Severus beside him in the front. The weather is less frigid than usual for the last of December and the ride through the Wiltshire countryside is exhilarating, with Severus sitting warm and content beneath Lucius' old cloak while Lucius describes the Mumming tradition.

"It's symbolic, you understand. The Earth is asleep in the dead of winter, and the miraculous cure represents the recovery in the coming spring. Over the years Mummery has become a combination of panto and bawdy show -- King George and the Dragon crossed with Father Christmas and a naughty skit with a knight and a harem." One of the horses tosses its head and Lucius tugs on the reins. "Oh, and there's a dead horse in it, something about beating a dead horse. In truly awful productions it's two men dressed up as the horse's legs with a horse's skull at the head, but...well, you'll see."

They pull up in front of an inn whose fireplaces can be scented long before the building comes into sight. Attentive grooms lead away Lucius' horses while a groveling innkeeper leads them inside and hands them cups of steaming wassail from a bowl hung over the burning remains of a Christmas tree. Though the inn is packed with people, they are led to seats near the cleared center where two men hack and swing at one another with swords.

"Beelzebub," murmurs Lucius, pointing. "Though he looks more like a satyr, he always wins." Sure enough, Beelzebub mimes slaying men dressed as soldiers, then -- to laughter and applause -- kisses barmaids and steals swigs from the tankards of spectators. When all the blue-frocked soldiers lie on the floor, there is another round of loud clapping and foot-stomping as food is brought out to the tables. A "dead" man's chest heaves when a pretty girl steps over him to hand a drink to a man at a seat in the corner.

"_Christmas now or Christmas not,  
I hope Father Christmas will never be forgot.  
Roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pie,  
Who likes them better than you and I?_"  
chants an old man dressed as a cross between a Muggle Santa Claus and a Morris Jack-in-the-Green. While the audience dines on greasy meat, a hunchbacked character named Saucy Jack comes around begging, claiming to need money for his family hidden in the hump upon his back. A grown girl dressed as a little boy pretends to pick the pockets of patrons while their hands are busy with the meal; she lets out loud squeals when they catch her and spank her bottom.

Severus wonders whether Lucius was teasing after all about the use of Dark Arts to raise the dead. The atmosphere in this inn is lewdly festive, and none of the revelers bother to use so much as a spell to refill their drinks when their elbows knock the tankards to the floor. Lucius applauds with a polite tolerance, making Severus doubt whether he really likes this loutish entertainment or only wishes to indulge the younger man in something he might enjoy. In truth Severus finds the inn too loud, the food too heavy, the air too full of smoke, and the strong wassail makes his head swim. He would be happy to return to the carriage and ride back pressed against Lucius' side.

"Here," whispers Lucius, his entire demeanor changing to enthusiastic glee. The entire room goes quiet. A man dressed in royal velvets and a crown has entered, floating above the floor; he recites a poem announcing that he is King William, and is joined by a large, dark man in a cloak who identifies himself "from Turkey lands" as an enemy of William the King. Once they have leapt from their invisible horses, their combat begins much like the previous performances, with much waving of the swords in the air, parrying and falling into the laps of screeching girls. Every so often the King makes a speech, declaring that he fights for England, once slew a dragon and won a Queen's daughter, at which the soldiers "slain" by Beelzebub all hail him.

And then it happens: King William raises his sword and runs the Turk through. The audience lets out a collective gasp as the sword hangs suspended, handle against the Turk's chest, blade sticking from his back. Lucius sits up straight, watching intently. Tugging out the weapon, King William makes a show of wiping it off on the Turk's cloak while the dark man sways, letting out a choked gurgle, but before he can fall the King catches him again on the blade, which makes a crunching noise as it slices through bone.

The audience, which has fallen into a hush, begins to bang on the tables, stomp feet and chant; some are reciting "More," some "Kill," while some seem to be speaking in a language that Severus has never heard before. With an inhuman grin, the King withdraws the sword and stabs the Turk again and again, creating fountains of blood from his body, slicing across his face and body once he has him down. Soon an enormous red stain covers the floor, yet blood no longer spurts from the Turk's wounds with every beat of his heart. The dusky face has become ashen; the dark eyes have opened wide, unblinking.

Another swing of the blade sends droplets spattering everyone nearby, including both Lucius, whose high forehead and shining hair become streaked with red, and Severus, who can feel the warm liquid burning his face. His stomach heaves as he breathes in the stench of the hot, smoky room filled with ale and carnage. For an awful moment he thinks that he is going to be sick. As he sways in his seat, Lucius puts a steadying hand on his shoulder and orders, "Watch."

King William has raised his sword high in the air. He recites, "_Is there a doctor to be found/To cure this man from bleeding on this cold ground?_" Astonishingly, raucous laughter greets this query. In comes a man who has not appeared before in the play, wearing a black hat and carrying a black bag, with an aura of power surrounding him. Once again the crowd goes quiet.

"_Here comes I the learned Doctor  
Lately come from Spain.  
I can cure the big-bellied man  
And fetch the dead to life again._"  
These words are spoken in an almost bored voice, as if the doctor does not wish to go through the motions of performing the Mummery. Stepping past the King, he draws a wand and begins to trace over the wounds in the Turk's body, chanting an incantation that Severus has never heard before. The words are crooned, almost sung, and as the wand moves over the Turk's body, the great gaping holes begin to close and knit. No other sounds can be heard in the room -- no tankards are lifted, no chairs scraped, in fact all of the watchers might be holding their breath.

In the silence, the doctor whispers a word. Severus cannot hear what it is, but beside him he feels Lucius strain forward, as well as every other person in the room. There is a muted, terrible gurgling noise: the corpse has drawn a breath. Severus sees the Turk's eyelids flutter, his lips close and open again. King William kneels in the circle of blood behind the dark form and helps the Turk to sit up. The dead man looks around with an expression of dawning horror, coughing pink spittle from the corners of his mouth. Then everything is obscured in the racket as the audience rises, applauding and stomping and throwing coins at the feet of the wizard-doctor.

Lucius hauls Severus to his feet, too, but the effort of trying to balance upright is too much for his stomach. Shoving through the cheering crowd, he races toward the door and fresh air, though he reaches it too late to keep from being sick in the remnants of snowfall around the side of the building. Inside the revelers have begun to sing a wassailing song and there are sounds of mugs and tankards being knocked together. Severus is grateful that in the minutes it takes Lucius to find him, he has time to kick snow over the evidence of his weakness and to scrub his face and clean his mouth with the numbingly cold flakes.

"I must have drunk too much," he explains apologetically. He cannot look at Lucius, who is examining him with a cool, assessing gaze. "Go back inside, I'll be there in a minute..."

"That was the end," Lucius tells him. "They'll be drinking and singing half the night, but the Mummery is finished. I've already sent for the carriage." Nodding, Severus leans back against the stones. He can no longer pretend to be able to stand straight no matter what Lucius might think of him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Severus replies much too forcefully. "I told you, it was the drink, and the smoke..."

"If you think you're going to be sick again, we can travel back by floo and I can pay someone to bring the carriage tomorrow."

"I'm _fine_." Through sheer force of will Severus pushes himself away from the side of the inn, hoping urgently that the carriage will arrive quickly. It does -- most of the revelers have indeed remained inside, where they are now singing the bawdy later verses of "Greensleeves."

But some of the Mummers have come out the back door of the inn, where they are counting their coins. Beside them is a great skeletal creature, a horse of sorts with wings and bones where its flesh should be. "What..." Severus croaks, stumbling back against Lucius, who follows his gaze with a puzzled expression as Severus whirls and strides away. He thinks that if he sees either the doctor or the Turk, he may run all the way back to Spinner's End.

"Here's the carriage." Lucius is beside him again, hand on his elbow. "Get inside. I'm going to hire a coachman to drive us back." Severus' foot slips as he attempts to climb into the carriage, but a silent strengthening spell seems to help, and on his second attempt he propels himself onto the seat, resting with his eyes closed until Lucius too enters and the horses begin to move.

They ride in silence for several minutes, with Lucius stealing glances at Severus, who is unwilling to speak until he is certain that clean air and distance have revitalized him. Finally he takes a deep breath, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

"How can they do that?"

"It's a spell," says Lucius patiently. "I think it likely that the Turk was given a potion beforehand, to numb his..."

"I know that. I know it was a spell." Severus' voice comes out childish and sullen but he can't help himself. "I mean, how can they _do_ that. It has to be illegal. Doesn't the Ministry of Magic know..."

An ugly laugh issues from Lucius' throat. "The Ministry of Magic! Do you think they have the ability to investigate every misuse of magic at this time of year, with representatives at every tavern? How long do you imagine the Minister could remain in power if he tried to stop the winter sacrifice or the sacred marriage in the spring? Most of these traditions are older than the Ministry itself."

"But I thought the Statute of Secrecy..."

"Just because the International Confederation of Warlocks surrendered to the Muggles, it doesn't mean every witch and wizard is content to cower. Haven't you ever tested out a spell at home despite the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery? Do you think that spell I used on the egg this morning is Ministry-approved?"

Severus does not reply. As the horses carry them toward the mansion with its collection of dark secrets, he thinks that surely there is a difference between shooting down flies in his bedroom and stabbing a man to death before an audience. They continue without speaking until they have nearly reached the Malfoy home, when Lucius asks, in a less belligerent voice, "Why did it bother you so much?"

"I don't know." This is an honest answer, though Severus does know, yet does not say, that Lucius' fascination with death troubles him almost as much as the bloody murder. "That inn was filthy and vulgar," he bursts out instead. "It reminds me of my father. Why would someone like you want to be seen someplace like that?"

"It reminds you of your father?" Severus bites his lip, staring out at the bleak sky and wishing he knew a spell to take the words back. The horses clop at a leisurely pace through the gate as he thinks that he has probably ruined the happiest week of his life by not being able to keep his mouth shut. When they come to a halt and he stumbles from the carriage, the whinnying horses make him flinch. He slouches unhappily toward the door, despising himself.

"Severus." Lucius is hurrying to catch up after paying the coachman, pulling off his gloves, looking concerned. "I should have realized...you couldn't see the thestrals in the show, could you? You didn't react when the King rode in." And now Lucius actually looks remorseful. "It was foolish to take you there. But come inside. You must want something to eat or at least some tea."

While they wait for the elves to bring the steaming mugs, Lucius natters on about the tradition of rebirthing the Earth from the heart of winter by way of a sacrifice. It is clear that he is fascinated by the cycle -- the possibility of reincarnation, or better yet, of finding a way to escape death altogether. Why would Lucius be so concerned about dying? "Does it scare you?" Severus bursts out.

"Killing?"

"Dying." Lucius flattens his lips and Severus realizes that, without meaning to, he has won back some of the respect he feared he had lost. "I imagine that killing is easy by comparison. But to try to _stop_ death...wouldn't you have to sacrifice something equally huge?"

The question earns him an approving nod, and then Dobby arrives with the food. Though he had not thought he would be hungry, Severus discovers that the long ride back and Lucius' concern have revived his appetite. He eats his soup, some pie and a little pudding. Later he finishes the Christmas chocolates while they sit in front of a fireplace, where Lucius reads aloud from an ancient book of Cabala about the process through which, as a man transforms a half-pound of mercury into first silver, then pure gold, he might accomplish the same conversion in his soul to produce an immortal, eternal spirit.

With a sigh Lucius marks the page and sets the book down, leaning his chin on Severus' shoulder and staring into the flames. "I'm afraid I didn't give you a particularly happy memory to end the year," he says. "Tomorrow there will be parades and street fairs and people jumping naked into the river to brave the cold. But I'd like to do something cheerful tonight. What would you like? Fireworks? Or shall I give you a set of silver runes and we can tell each other's fortunes?"

Severus thinks that he might like to have a set of silver runes as a souvenir, but there is something he wants much more, before this year can end. "I want something you told me I could have when I was ready," he says. "I am ready. I want you to take me to bed...I want you to fuck me."

Lucius sits back to look at him before nodding, smiling a little nostalgically, like an adult with someone he has known since childhood but has realized is a child no longer. "I know you're ready," he agrees. "But, Severus, I know you've had a trying day and the first time is not always pleasant. Even if you want it, it can be uncomfortable and frightening..."

"Were you scared?" Severus interrupts.

"Not exactly," says Lucius with a soft laugh, though he looks vaguely abashed. "I'd swallowed half a bottle of whiskey laced with Praepotentis potion. I want to make sure this is what you want your last memory of the year to be -- it's not one you're likely to forget very quickly."

"I won't want to forget," insists Severus. "I don't want to forget this afternoon. I don't want to forget anything I know now, and I want to know this before we're back at school and it would have to be in a hurry with silencing charms and..." He very nearly tells Lucius that he does not want to sleep in his own bed, afterward, but to stay with Lucius and wake up for more.

A slow grin creeps across Lucius' face, but it is nothing like the wistful expression from before; the look is eager and hungry and _wicked_. "If you're sure," he says, "then go take a bath, and put on the robe I'm going to have brought to you, and come to my room in an hour." He stands, winks at Severus and walks out of the parlor, calling behind him, "One hour. Don't be late," as Severus sits with his heart beginning to race.

The tub in the guest bathroom is nowhere near as impressive as the one in the prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts but it is more than twice as big as the one in the bathroom Severus must share at home with his parents. There are no magical taps, but there are a dozen vials of scented salts and bubbling potions along with curved pipes to provide underwater jets. Though Severus had washed and removed his stained clothing before he and Lucius ate, he is startled to find when he looks in the mirror that there are still spots of blood in his hair. He scrubs it under the spigot before filling the tub and pouring in drops of clove-scented oil that erase the stench of smoky grease clinging to his skin.

His prick has been half-hard since Lucius instructed him to come to his room, but he avoids touching it, afraid of bringing himself off in his hand just imagining what is to come. He wonders whether Lucius will prepare him and fuck him right away or whether he will tease him first, until Severus is so anxious and so desperate to be touched that he might say something he shouldn't. Despite how relaxing it is to lie in the bath after the stressful afternoon, he does not want to become too aroused or too sleepy, so he gets up and rinses off after only a few minutes, standing beneath a cool shower as he thoroughly washes his underarms and groin.

The robe that Lucius has sent is pale green silk which clings to and caresses Severus' body, making his prick swell anew and tenting around the prominent bulge. He tries to read the Dark Arts books that Lucius gave him for Christmas but after a few minutes he finds he cannot concentrate. Instead he lies back on the bed, working to clear his thoughts. He has wanted to feel Lucius inside him since he first saw Lucius touching himself in the prefect's bathroom not so many weeks ago, though it feels like something that happened to him in a far-distant childhood. Any lingering naivete has been stripped away by the Mummers.

Now he wonders whether he should be sorry, but with the initial shock fading, he feels stronger than before. He doubts his Gryffindor tormentors have ever witnessed such a thing. Lucius is right that he has tried spells he had no business to do, where he was terrified of his mother finding out, let alone the Ministry of Magic, although he was never caught and never got in trouble. He can do things -- learn things -- that will make him more powerful than his enemies, with Lucius initiating him into these mysteries.

Rising, he straightens his hair and walks to Lucius' bedroom through the quiet hallways. When he raises his hand to knock, the door opens for him. The room is lit entirely by candles that float near the ceiling like the ones in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, which cast strange, seductive shadows over Lucius' face as he comes forward to lead Severus to the bed.

"This looks good on you," says Lucius, tugging the robe open and letting it fall. He then does the same with his own darker robe, leaving them on the rug as he sits on the side of the bed and pulls Severus between his thighs. Their pricks are erect and pointing at one another as if declaring their own intentions. Wrapping his hands around Severus' neck, Lucius pulls him down for a kiss, letting Severus move close enough to put his own hands in Lucius' hair which is softer and silkier than the robe.

"You smell so clean," murmurs Lucius. "And I feel very dirty for wanting to put you on all fours, and put my tongue inside you, and then my cock, and fill up your arse." Groaning, Severus trembles as Lucius pulls him in for another, harder kiss, gripping the hair much less gently. "Listen. The first time, it's not unusual to have a moment where you're certain you're going to rip in two and to say 'Stop' when you don't actually want to stop everything. So if you really want me to stop, why don't you say 'Cease,' but if you want me to stay still for just a moment, then you can say 'Stop.' You'll remember that?"

Whenever Lucius talks to him like this, instructing him while they are doing something intimate, it makes Severus blush, yet he likes it; he feels as if he is being given more control, and also as if Lucius cares about him. When he nods, Lucius adds, "There are other things we can try later where you may want to pick your own words, but let's keep it simple for now." Rocking back, Lucius pulls Severus onto the bed with him, depositing him on the mattress. "Now let's get started," he says with glee, reaching toward the table where the jar of potion sits beside the sleeping dragons on the chessboard.

As he had suggested he would, Lucius begins by using his tongue, though he does not immediately put it in Severus' arse; instead he kisses and nibbles his neck and collarbone, then puts Severus' arms above his head to lick his underarms and suck his nipples. The eager tongue stroking his armpit is like nothing Severus has ever imagined, and when Lucius bites down gently on the nub he has teased into a firm bump, he thinks it is possible that he could come just from that.

"Please," he hears himself begging when Lucius scrapes his teeth along the inside of his arm, and "Oh please fuck please," as Lucius' tongue teases along his bottom rib. He knows that he is clean, for he has just spent nearly an hour in the bath, but this indeed feels deliciously dirty to him, all the more so because he knows where it is leading.

"On your belly then," orders Lucius with the same barely suppressed delight, helping Severus to roll and rise onto his knees. Lucius' thumb presses and circles at the back of Severus' balls, stimulating just beneath the hole which twitches and flexes, then the thumb is replaced by Lucius' tongue and Severus hears his own voice again, begging and very nearly sobbing for more. "You like being penetrated, don't you," Lucius asks, breath warm against Severus' bottom as his thumb nudges the pucker open wider. "Aren't you glad we waited? Won't it mean so much more this way?"

Before Severus can answer the mouth descends again, thrusting the tongue in ruthlessly while the thumb slides down over Severus' balls and up along his prick. He knows he could come this way so easily, and begs again, "Please, oh fuck, oh please Lucius, fuck me please..."

He feels Lucius shift his weight, and a moment later he feels Lucius' fingers moving against him, cooler and more deliberate, covered with slippery potion. "I can't wait to do this with my cock," Lucius tells Severus as he slides a finger in steadily, one knuckle, two, and it feels so much dirtier when Lucius does it than when he's tried it by himself, determined and relentless. With a loud groan Severus clutches at the bedcovers beneath him as Lucius begins to move the finger in and out. "I'm going to fuck you just like this, and you're going to clench up just like that..."

The fingertip presses down and Severus cries out, then it withdraws and pushes back, joined by another finger, which stretches the opening somewhat uncomfortably but increases the naughty, dirty sense of willful indiscretion. Lucius continues to push his fingers in and out, asking Severus whether he likes it while Severus continues to wail and beg; then he withdraws them, dropping a kiss onto Severus' shoulder.

"Why don't you help me prepare myself," he suggests, pushing the potion jar toward Severus' hands. As much as he wants to be fucked, it is a relief to be off his knees for a minute and delicious to spread the oily cream on the hot, hard cock that throbs in his hand like a living creature with its own desires. Severus drops a kiss to the head before he turns, getting back on his hands and knees, sensing that Lucius will appreciate this gesture of acceptance, and indeed there is triumph mixed with the hunger in Lucius' eyes.

Oh, but Lucius is right that for a moment Severus believes that he will split in two. The prick is so much bigger than two fingers, pressing relentlessly past the ring of muscle, shoving inside with a firmer thrust than Severus had dared use the first time with Lucius. Although he knows it is not possible that he could injure any vital organs, fear overwhelms his desire for a moment and he gasps, "Stop..."

Lucius halts without withdrawing, stroking a hand over his lower back. "Don't tense, it makes it worse," he murmurs soothingly. "Is it very painful or just very strange?"

"Oh -- strange," manages Severus. Indeed, the pain has not grown worse since Lucius pushed the head inside and it seems to be lessening, but the sense that he is being torn open remains. What if he can't walk properly afterwards, or he can't control his bowels? But these are ridiculous fears -- he has, after all, done this to Lucius -- and he forces them away, trying to think instead of what Lucius must be feeling. That velvet heat around the head of his cock...

Without realizing that he is doing so, Severus relaxes enough that Lucius can ease in deeper, letting out a growl of pleasure as he does so. The sound seems to vibrate Severus' prick from the inside, making it twitch, and as quickly as that, the pain becomes bearable, even welcome: he is letting Lucius fuck him. Cautiously Severus pushes back, taking Lucius all the way inside, and he feels Lucius lean forward to wrap a hand around his prick. "Better?" Lucius asks.

"Please..." moans Severus, and Lucius takes over, beginning to thrust, beginning to stroke him, not too hard or fast at first but growing increasingly frenzied as Severus calls out in mingled pain and pleasure, still feeling bruised but certain that it is worth it. He can feel Lucius thicken inside him just before he comes, gripping Severus' hip and convulsing against him. When Lucius has finished, his prick is no longer so large and uncomfortable inside but more like a reminder of the act they are performing. He strokes Severus until the bed is spattered beneath them, telling Severus how good he feels, how much Lucius had wanted to be the first to come in his arse, and now it is Severus' turn to come.

They are lying together, skin sticking together where they touch, when the old year dies and the next begins. "Happy New Year," Lucius tells him softly, turning his head in the direction of the sound and light of fireworks through the curtains. "Are you happy?"

Severus knows that it is the wrong holiday for sacred sex and that most would consider what they have just done to be a travesty of the great mysteries rather than a celebration. Yet the darkness of the afternoon has vanished and he feels filled with the coming light of spring. Even though Lucius has not put it into words, Severus is certain that he, too, thinks this was more than just a fuck. In some way he had considered Severus' innocence a gift that will give him power in a way it never could have if he had taken it carelessly.

_He knows I love him_, guesses Severus. _He wants it...he wants me._ Joy explodes in him like the fireworks out in the night and his arms tighten around Lucius, who hugs him back.

"Yes," Severus nods. "I am happy." And for the first time in his life, looking forward into the new year, he believes it may continue.


	8. Sacrifices

Lucius is still asleep when Severus wakes with the first dawn of the new year, with the sheets soft around his body and the bed cozy from the heat of their bodies. The room smells like Lucius' hair and the sweet herbs the elves use when they wash the bedcovers. Gingerly, Severus touches himself, for the place where Lucius entered him feels tender if not exactly painful, and he needs this moment to become acquainted with his body again before Lucius wakes.

He had thought that perhaps, afterward, his body would no longer feel like his own and had suspected that he would not like that feeling, but it is the opposite. For the first time since he became aware that this skinny, pale form was his to present to the world, he feels a certain pride in it. Certainly there are potions he could use to make the faint ache disappear, but he does not want it to. He wants the strange feeling to continue, to remind him of what he and Lucius did and how it has changed him.

The blankets have slid partially down Lucius' body in the warm room, revealing his firm, nearly hairless chest. Looking at the man, it is clear to Severus that he is never going to desire any woman in the same way and he can see now that in the past he was always more aware of male beauty -- not just obvious examples like some of the paintings at Hogwarts but people he has met, like that handsome Quidditch star Patrick Macaulay and even the odious Sirius Black. Severus knows that he will never wish to marry, not even to have a child whose blood would be stronger than his own. He knows too that this may be the last day -- possibly ever -- when he will have Lucius all to himself, and he determines to revel in every moment of what he has rather than regret what cannot be.

"Involito," he whispers. He is not holding his wand, but the enchantment on the bed responds to voice alone, and the curtains begin to sway, stroking long loose panels of fabric over Lucius' chest and into his hair. With a soft groan Lucius stretches, still not fully conscious, reacting to the stimulation as if it is a dream. Severus' fingers skim across Lucius' chest as he leans over the passive form, rests his cheek against the collarbone and murmurs, "Redimio."

The cords tighten and move up along Lucius' arms and legs until they have reached his wrists and ankles, tugging his body straight. "Mmm," he grunts as the sensation draws him toward wakefulness. "Severus, what..." But the question is answered when Severus' mouth latches on to a nipple and begins to suck, fingers teasing its pair, driving coherent words from Lucius who responds with a moan.

Severus has never before had the courage to tie Lucius up without permission and worship his prone body. He had thought that Lucius might be angry with him and is thrilled to find Lucius surrendering completely, shuddering and groaning his pleasure without making demands. The strong torso arches and squirms when Severus puts his face in Lucius' armpit, tasting the soft skin below the hair and raising goosebumps along his side. Then Lucius bucks helplessly as Severus licks inside his thighs and all around his balls without ever touching the stiff, straining prick.

He had thought of taking Lucius inside himself again, putting slippery potion all over that rigid flesh and sliding himself down on it, but he thinks that he may yet be too sore for that and doesn't want to start something he won't be able to finish. Instead he frees Lucius' ankles from the ties that have pulled them toward the lower corners of the mattress, fastening them instead to the velvet drapes hanging from the canopy. He has never seen Lucius so utterly yielding and finds it painfully exciting, so much so that he abandons his plan to put his tongue in Lucius and focuses on getting inside him as quickly as possible. Lucius is so relaxed that Severus' fingers encounter no resistance when they spread him wide and slick the warm channel. Giving his own prick a cursory coating as well, Severus leans forward and thrusts more quickly and easily than he has dared in the past.

"Oh, yes, fuck me," Lucius groans in a voice Severus has never heard before. Is this ordering or begging? He pulls back partway, presses in deep and watches Lucius' head thrash. "Yes! Fuck me hard!" The bed is working with him, tugging up on the material binding Lucius' arms and legs and then giving it momentary slack which pulls Lucius' body up against Severus and then lets it sag.

They are looking into one another's eyes, where Severus thinks that he can actually _see_ Lucius' desire, and he answers it with a passion he cannot disguise, thrusting uncontrollably. The room seems to swim with the connection like a chant in his rhythm, _love you love you love you love_ until they are both calling out, coming nearly in perfect unison, eyes finally closing against the surfeit.

The draperies binding Lucius slowly release him, laying him flat on the bed. Severus slides on top of him, resting his head on Lucius' chest, ecstatic and overwhelmed. It is several minutes before he turns his face up to look at Lucius.

The older man looks pensive -- not chagrined exactly, but concerned. Severus feels his stomach tighten as he wonders whether, despite Lucius' obvious pleasure in the act, he is sorry that he let Severus go so far.

"I assume that you know about Occlumency?"

"Yes," says Severus, slightly indignant. His mother had taught him the rudiments of blocking unwanted intruders into his thoughts before he left for Hogwarts, telling him that there would be more powerful wizards from stronger families who might try to manipulate him and it would serve him well to be able to protect himself.

"Do you realize," asks Lucius softly, "that a few minutes ago, your mind was completely open? I could see what you were thinking. I knew what you were going to do before you did it."

"I thought you liked it," Severus replies in a wounded voice.

He feels Lucius' hands on his shoulders, rolling him to the side and tugging him up until once again they are face to face. Lucius' expression is somber with just a trace of worry, though he squeezes Severus' arm reassuringly. "I did like it. But it's dangerous for you to be so open with your thoughts. Dangerous for both of us, do you understand?"

Blushing, Severus drops his eyes. "I only -- I thought you knew." Lucius' fingers tighten on his arm again and he glances back up, comforted for a moment to find Lucius looking directly at him, but then something strange happens: the room begins to swim again, and Severus finds memories surfacing in his mind that he has not tried to summon -- some not unpleasant, like his mother teaching him as an eager, nervous little boy to play Exploding Snap, and some quite grim, like hiding on his bed while outside his bedroom his father shouted at his mother and objects went crashing to the floor...

"There, do you see how easily I did that?" inquires Lucius, and Severus understands that everything that just went through his own mind appeared to Lucius as well. "And I'm not a particularly brilliant Legilimens. Severus, we'll be back at Hogwarts soon. You're going to need to keep your thoughts protected or you'll reveal your weaknesses to the people you most need to convince of your strength. Do you understand?"

The words sting, yet Severus nods. He does understand -- it is not only his own reputation but Lucius' position that he could place at risk, and it is only Lucius' stature at Hogwarts and as a Malfoy that has allowed them to be together without suspicion in the first place. Still, it is hard to match up this coldly rational Lucius with the one who not ten minutes earlier lay on his back with his legs in the air, begging to be fucked.

Still holding his eyes, Severus concentrates, and suddenly images are crowding his mind, of a little boy holding the key to the secret dungeon chamber, of a tall blond man slowly pulling a wand from a sleeping woman's hand while the little boy watches from behind a curtain...

A heavy smack against the mattress startles Severus back to the present. The thick leather curtain binding is slapping around and between himself and Lucius; he jerks back with a gasp. "How did you do that?" Lucius demands, less angry than incredulous, pushing the binding aside. "Right into my thoughts -- so quickly I didn't even realize what you were doing -- "

"Sorry," says Severus, though he isn't, really; knowing Lucius, this unexpected skill may earn him respect rather than fury. "I didn't mean to. But I'm not so weak that I can't defend myself."

"I never doubted that you could." Yet Lucius nods as if something has been proven to him, and, indeed, he looks somewhat impressed. "I don't invite every boy who follows me around to my home, you know. I picked you carefully."

"And I'm not going to disappoint you," mutters Severus a little sullenly, though his mind is racing once again. Clearly Lucius is making certain of his security. And, perhaps, he is a bit embarrassed about how completely he has yielded, not in erotic surrender which Lucius considers a matter of pleasure rather than power, but in allowing a connection to form that has enabled Severus to slip behind his defenses even for a minute. Rather than risk having Lucius declare that everything must end when they return to Hogwarts for their safety, Severus adds, "I'm not like this with other people. It's only because I lo--"

Lucius' finger is on his lips before he can complete the sentence, pressing down firmly in the gesture for silence. His head is shaking. "Don't say that out loud," he says quietly. "Do you understand what you give up by saying those words?"

"But I'm saying them to _you_," argues Severus, genuinely puzzled. "Dumbledore says that -- _that_ \-- is the greatest power in the world, stronger than death."

"Dumbledore may have been a great wizard once, but _that_ has always been his weakness," Lucius replies. "Tell me, what have you observed? Has the love between your parents made them stronger?" Severus makes a face. He knows that his mother loves him, and in some way this protects him from the worst of his father's wrath...yet at the same time, loving him has made his mother weak, for his father knows that threatening Severus will force her to bend in ways that she would not otherwise.

And Severus cannot imagine how his mother ever could have loved his father, though from what he has seen of the Malfoy household, there does not appear to be any great love between Lucius' pureblood parents either -- nor between parent and child. "Aren't you going to love your wife, then?" he asks Lucius.

"My choice will be somewhat limited." Lucius frowns. "There aren't many pureblood witches of an appropriate age from good families. I hope I _like_ her -- I would not want to live with someone who made things unpleasant. I don't think my parents like each other very much; they only travel together to avoid gossip. But haven't you seen the idiocy of people who think they are marrying for love? A wizard decides to marry a Muggle because he likes her laugh or a witch decides to marry someone of weaker blood because she thinks he's handsome, and twenty years later they've produced disgraceful children, they're shunned from wizarding society...it's a disgrace."

Part of Severus is elated to know that Lucius does not particularly expect to fall in love with the woman he will marry, yet he finds it disturbing that Lucius does not seem to believe that love can happen spontaneously and unexpectedly and change everything, just as happened to Severus. Defiantly he announces, "I don't think _that_ weakens me. I've learned things. I know things now. I'm even a better Slytherin -- I have ambitions."

"You have changed," Lucius agrees, smiling a little. "Though you were always demanding. And argumentative. But are you telling me that if I said _that_ has become too dangerous and must stop here, you would say your farewells and go on your way?"

Severus thinks, for a moment, that Lucius used a nonverbal spell on him as he spoke. His chest constricts, his throat burns; for a moment he feels as sick as he did watching the bloody death in the Mummery. "Don't," he says quickly, and then he cannot speak. If he apologizes or pleads, he will be proving Lucius' point that he is weak, and if he continues to insist on his feelings, he will demonstrate that it may be too dangerous...he could lose Lucius either way.

The idea is as intolerable as ever, and the misery of knowing that things must return to where they were -- and that even if they do not, Lucius will still be gone forever in the spring -- settles back over him.

A finger beneath his chin tilts his face upward. "Don't look so unhappy," Lucius tells him. "I was proving a point: You need to be careful. You need to protect your ambitions. When we are back at Hogwarts, you can't return to lurking outside my classrooms. You need to think seriously about what sort of work you want to do when you leave school, keep your marks high in the important subjects, stay out of trouble with the Gryffindors and trust me to find you when I can."

Carefully Severus nods, keeping his gaze fixed on a point just past Lucius' ear; he is afraid that if he blinks, his eyes will water. Lucius studies him for a moment, then leans over to brush a kiss across his mouth. "You worry too much. You need to spend more time enjoying what you have and work on obtaining what you want." Nodding in reply, still not meeting Lucius' eyes, Severus kisses him back. "Now let's have breakfast and we can go to the fair."

Some of the Wiltshire customs they witness as they ride through the brisk morning make Severus shake his head incredulously. Farmers have set hawthorn bushes afire amidst straw in their fields, believing that it will bring good crops in the fall. In one enclosure a flat cake has been placed on one of the horns of a cow while several people dance around, distracting the animal and waiting to see where the cake will fall.

"Sinister," says Lucius with satisfaction in his voice, elbowing Severus. "If you knocked at any of their doors, they would welcome you -- the first-footer of the year must be young, male, dark-haired and if at all possible carrying money or at least a lump of coal." He presses a coin into Severus' gloved hand, not a Galleon but an ancient gold piece with a worn face on it. "There, for luck. Shall I take you to the Giants Dance? Or to see the chalk horses? Or would you like to ice skate?"

It does not surprise Severus to learn that Lucius can skate -- he cannot, of course, or at least he is lucky simply to keep his footing, whereas he has no doubt that Lucius moves swiftly and elegantly across the ice. He would not like for Lucius to see his clumsiness, yet he wants to choose something that Lucius will enjoy -- something that will make Lucius want to have him back. "Can we visit one of the barrows?" he asks.

Lucius beams at him. "Of course we can," he replies and turns the carriage toward a town at the center of an ancient stone circle revered by Wizards and Muggles alike. The most prominent of the barrows is slightly more than a mile to the south of the village on a low ridge running east and west, forming part of the great serpent whose head is the sanctuary on Overton Hill. Massive upright stones block the forecourt behind the false entrance built to keep intruders out. Although Muggles believe that the massive tomb was sealed after the last burial, they have not discovered all the entrances into the ancient grave.

Though Severus has heard tales of people whose skin prickles with chills from the haunted barrow, it is warmer inside than standing in the cold January air. Behind the great sarsens that mark the entrance to the chambers beneath the ground, the temperature remains steady even when the low howling of the wind can be heard beyond.

"Can you feel the power in this place?" asks Lucius in a low, respectful voice. "It has known magic...the mystery of death."

"It's just an old tomb," counters Severus somewhat crossly, looking at the evidence of looting in the scraped stones. "They built monuments to the dead because they feared death. Then later generations stole the treasures."

"Or perhaps they understood the secrets of death, and respected it, and took talismans to ward against it." There is a gleam in Lucius' eyes that can be seen even in the dim chamber. "The people buried in many of these barrows were not chosen accidentally. There were sacrifices here."

"And the people who built them are long forgotten anyway, even by their descendants." The sound of Severus' voice echoes eerily from the stones as he passes into the darker, deeper chamber. "Everyone's been trying to figure out ways around death for as long as anyone's been alive. If there was some magical way to do it, don't you think someone would have figured it out by now?"

"That's difficult to say, really. For as long as there have been Muggles, they have seen Wizards as a threat -- the cause of their sufferings rather than the ones who might hold the secret to ending all suffering." Lucius' tone drips disgust. "Do you know that the witches of Didmarton were buried upright at Nan Tow's Tump, the round barrow?"

"And there are dead giants in the barrows in Somerset," replies Severus, recalling the story from his childhood. He stubs his toe against one of the stones, then rests his hand upon it, trying to feel its power. Hogwarts is quite new compared to this barrow which is believed to be more than five thousand years old. It comes from a time when there was no distinction between the Muggle and magical realms.

Do the Malfoys believe that the weakness of new blood, Mudblood, is the reason most wizards no longer live as long as Dumbledore has? Does he think that the sacrifice of Muggles -- like the Turk in the Mummers play -- might somehow be used to strengthen the old blood? "The ancient rites were used to serve the land itself and the people who shared it, not any single person, not even the most powerful lords of the ancient Houses," he reminds Lucius.

"Yet the lords did benefit. They did not go to the Earth themselves; others were given up in their place. They took the power of those deaths and their land grew stronger."

Lucius sounds as if he believes he might evade death by absorbing the power of the deaths of others, like in sculptures of Asian magical figures who devour death to conquer it. For Severus, whose interest in the Dark Arts has thus far been limited to seeking ways to punish and silence his enemies, it is a grand and unnerving thought, yet he does not understand its source. It is not as though they are routinely threatened by dragons or werewolves. The eerie enclosed dark of the barrow is beginning to affect him, and he finds himself longing for sunlight though he knows there will be little warmth above. "I'd like to see the town," he says, and turns away from the image of Lucius' golden hair silhouetted against the dark stones, climbing from the underworld into the pale afternoon light.

The bitter morning has become a blustery day, yet other people are braving the chill to walk the stone circle and cross the fields to the great mound of Silbury Hill just south of the town. Severus is not a little surprised to find that he has grown hungry and the idea of a festival appeals to him now. There are apples and mince pies to be had for a song -- indeed, small children perform carols to earn treats -- and older girls drop egg whites into boiling cauldrons to see if the congealing substance may form shapes like letters, said to be the first letters of the names of the men they will marry. On the far side of town are New Year's Day races, a way to recover from all the drinking the night before, and people leap into the small lake in their underwear, shrieking at the cold.

Severus feels his mood lifting as he bites into a steaming burnt chestnut. In Avebury, Lucius in his fine cloak earns no more stares than the eccentric older women with their dowsing rods. The Malfoy heir seems to be recognized in these parts and Severus can feel envious eyes upon himself as people wonder about his companion. These pleasures may seem simple to Lucius Malfoy, but in Spinner's End, Severus would not even have this.

Quite suddenly the thought of going back is unbearable -- not only back to the house where his father has probably not yet awoken from his drunkenness of the night before, but back to a place where no one has ambitions to be something more important, where it is assumed that a boy of his background will end up doing drudge work in a shop or playing assistant to someone far more important. When has he ever dared to wonder if he might become an important or feared wizard, let alone to dream of defeating death?

"What's the matter?" asks Lucius, interrupting Severus' thoughts and echoing his frown. "Aren't you enjoying yourself?"

"I am," Severus replies automatically. Then, "I don't want to go home."

"It can't be helped, I suppose," Lucius sighs. "But you'll come of age soon enough, and then you can spend the holidays wherever you please." For a horrified moment Severus thinks Lucius believes he means that he does not want to return to the Malfoy house. "It's better now when my father's not there...I imagine yours is, too," Lucius adds, and then Severus understands that it is Lucius who does not wish to stay in his own home. "Next Christmas I'll see if I can't convince my parents to go abroad early."

"Let's go back," says Severus in a low voice. "Let's go back early and go to bed."

Lucius' wicked smile warms the afternoon. "I thought you would never ask."

Back at the mansion there is Mull cheddar soup and grouse and pumpkin pie, all fresh for the New Year, with firewhiskey to bring in a quick spring. While they wait for the food to settle they sit in the room with Lucius' grandfather's hunting trophies and play Gobstones, laughing uproariously when the stones spit disgusting liquid onto the dragonskin rug. When at last they retire to Lucius' rooms, snow has begun to fall outside the windows and the night with it, making the house seem hushed and isolated from the worlds of Muggles and Wizards alike.

"We smell like bonfires," says Lucius, not disapprovingly, and then in an entirely different tone: "We could take a bath." Severus doubts that there will ever be a time when he stops associating bathtubs with his first glimpse of Lucius unclothed; merely stepping into a tub, even the miserable one at home, sends a quiver of arousal through him. Turning towards the bathroom, he recalls the tour of the house Lucius gave him the morning after he arrived and a thought occurs to him:

"We could have some of that potion you took from your father's collection."

"That," smiles Lucius, "is a brilliant suggestion." Quickly he retrieves the little bottle. "I've never used this with anyone before -- there's some risk that it will act like a love potion. Effects temporary, of course, but it enhances all aspects of the experience: you feel things more strongly, you're more sensitive, you have better endurance. If your emotions are engaged they will be more passionate. You can see how dangerous it could be in the wrong situation, which is why it's illegal. Here." Unsealing the bottle, he hands it to Severus. "Just one swallow."

The potion is like a feast of aphrodisiac flavors one after another, rosemary to curry to fig to ginseng to cinnamon to chocolate, with a faintly spicy aftertaste that leaves Severus craving salty skin on his tongue. Handing the bottle back to Lucius, he sways slightly, and Lucius, laughing, helps him to the bath. "It will take a few minutes to reach full strength, so we may as well enjoy ourselves in the meantime." Finishing off his own mouthful, Lucius pours something into the water that smells of chypre and musk, stripping Severus as the tub fills. The water catches the candlelight, sending rainbows into the steam above the tub, bright on Lucius' skin and hair as he sinks in. The rainbows seem to follow Lucius' fingers as he washes Severus, simple touches making him gasp.

"When we go to bed," says Lucius, "I'd like to blindfold you, so you can experience the feeling without any distraction." Under other circumstances Severus knows he would be nervous at the thought of Lucius watching his responses to stimuli he cannot anticipate; Severus can easily imagine Lucius introducing pain or something startling, with the expectation that Severus will be pleased, when in fact Severus cannot guess how he will react especially with this potion distorting his reason. And yet he wants what Lucius wants: he thinks that there is nothing Lucius could ask of him now, even if it involved the darkest of Dark Arts, which he would not find exciting.

"Anything," Severus groans. He is already achingly hard and would be growing impatient were it not for the myriad distractions, the dancing rainbows in the mist, the softness of Lucius' fingers in his hair, the hot water and cool air alternating on his arms and shoulders...

"Come," whispers Lucius, and Severus very nearly does, untouched, as Lucius tugs on his waist, but it is not a sexual command: Lucius is merely trying to lift him from the tub, rinse him clean beneath the shower and wrap a thick towel around him, each thread seeming to tickle his hypersensitive skin. He gives a soft groan, and when Lucius leans forward to lick the water from his throat, he arches helplessly against him, rubbing his prick over the soft material trapped between himself and Lucius. "Eager, I see. Isn't the potion wonderful?"

When the towel is gone, Severus still feels as though he is surrounded by waves of warm water stroking and heating his skin. He knows that he is flushed, and even the darkest corners of the room seem lit by a rosy glow. The rainbows follow Lucius as he leads Severus to bed where the curtains are already swaying, parting like veils to invite them to the intimate space.

Lucius teases Severus with the blindfold before putting it on, gliding the velvety fabric across his thighs, around his prick and over his lips where he thinks he can smell and taste his own arousal. With his eyes covered, his skin feels even more alert, sensing the currents in the air as Lucius shifts around him and sets all the fabric hanging from the canopy in motion. Severus feels his wrists caught up and lifted above his head, not bound tightly, but moved out of the way to expose more of him. He can feel different textures being stroked across his body -- silk, satin, leather, velvet, twisted rope, light cord, and ohh that's Lucius' skin, that's Lucius' hair being dragged across his belly and prick, those are Lucius' fingers tracing a pattern on his belly, letters, even, perhaps a spell...

"What are you doing?" he asks, his own breath like a warm breeze on the part of his face not covered by the blindfold, which has not stopped the rainbows from dancing before his eyes. The flesh beneath Lucius' fingers is heating up, twitching and undulating, and his prick is straining to press into the hand just out of its reach.

Breath that is cooler than the touch raises goosebumps on Severus' belly as Lucius replies. "I'm marking you as mine," he murmurs, halting the slow slide of his fingertips. "You are mine, aren't you? You said you loved me."

"Oh," groans Severus, then, "Yes," and "Don't stop." He wishes that he could see Lucius' face, to know whether this humility will be seen as weakness like the words Lucius had not wished him to speak, yet at the same time he senses that he does not need to know. Lucius would not lay claim to anything he believed unworthy or faulty. Perhaps Lucius has blindfolded him not only so that his skin might feel this pleasure undistracted, but so that he cannot look into Lucius' eyes and read whatever truths he might find there...

A hot enclosure surrounds his prick, making all thought vanish until there is nothing but demanding pressure and bursts of violet-red-orange fireworks in the place of vision. Fabric fingers stroke his chest and underarms and thighs as Lucius sucks him, drawing repeated shameless cries from him, the whole bed seeming to sway with his pleasure, until at last he can hold back no longer and overflows in hot bursts in Lucius' mouth. When it is over he hears Lucius murmur a spell and instantly his arse feels relaxed and slick, as if fingers have been massaging the opening. "I want to fuck you like this," Lucius tells him, kissing his way up his body. "I want to come inside you. Would you like that?"

"Oh, yes," whispers Severus, and then, "Take off the blindfold. I want to see you." For a moment there is stillness, then he feels fingers fumbling at the knot, and the fabric falls away. The brightness of the dim candlelit room shocks Severus at first and he must close his lids, but they have adjusted by the time Lucius has arranged his legs to either side and pushed a pillow beneath his hips. He can see the sheen of sweat on Lucius' face and shoulders, like a triumphant athlete, and he watches the muscles ripple beneath the skin as Lucius raises himself over him and pushes inside.

Though the stretch is awkward, there is no pain this time -- perhaps because of the potion triggering ease throughout Severus' body, though he thinks it is also because he is looking into Lucius' eyes as he thrusts and the man's pleasure flares brightly enough to encompass both of them. It should be too soon for Severus to grow aroused again, but the magic fading the edges of the bed into a colorful blur is already working on his prick, making it throb against his belly. And he can feel what Lucius is feeling: he can stare right into his thoughts and make the room swim, seeing himself bound and owned, wrapped in a blanket or in the earth, drawing power, giving and taking in an unbreakable current with Lucius...

_You're mine too_, Severus thinks without speaking, unsure whether it is recognition or command. In either case there is no resistance. He feels Lucius shudder, thrusting into him almost violently, stabbing pressure that coalesces into ecstasy. And he can sense what Lucius feels as well, the tight spiral in his groin releasing in a series of bursts, both of them coming, their shouts mingling.

"That was astonishing," says Lucius much later, lying belly to belly with Severus as the canopy fabrics wave gently over them both like cooling fans. "I had no idea. Now I know why they consider it a love potion." He chuckles softly and Severus joins him, though he is certain that the potion is not why he was able to reach Lucius as he did.

Whether Lucius wishes to call it by _that_ name or not, there is something between them now that feeds as it is fed; perhaps it is base or even cursed, but it is powerful, and it is making Severus powerful as well in ways he does not yet understand. He thinks of the haunted chambers in the barrow and understands at last why Lucius would choose the blackness, the blindfold, the dark.


	9. Inundation

The first week back at Hogwarts after Christmas, Severus thinks that Lucius must be testing him. Though the Head Boy smiles when he passes Severus in the corridors, greets him in the common room and converses with him on neutral subjects like gobstones and Transfiguration, it is as if there has never been anything else between them. No one seeing them together would ever suspect that they are friends, let alone lovers. There is just enough contact that Severus can bear it -- he did not see Lucius at all for the last few days of the winter holidays, after all, so this is still an improvement. Yet he cannot help wondering whether he did something wrong, or if things simply went too far.

By the second week back at Hogwarts, he has begun to wonder whether Lucius is testing himself rather than Severus. Though the courteous smiles and conversations continue, the Head Boy's smile seems strained. He fidgets, glancing down the table when his friends speak to him at mealtimes, and when Severus sees him doing homework or playing wizard's chess in the common room, he seems easily distracted. Though he always looks away when he notices that Severus has seen him, Severus has glanced up to find Lucius watching him with an intent gaze more than once while helping Regulus Black with his Potions homework.

Professor Slughorn had sent the younger Black to him, saying that if Sirius could not get that pretty Gryffindor Lily Evans to help his own brother, then Regulus would do well to ask Snape who was the other outstanding Potions student in their year. Though Severus still scoffs at the Slug Club, he has been making an effort to impress the professor who can be very generous at sharing both materials and information with favorite students. Lucius must have mentioned the Felix Felicis to him, for Slughorn had smiled at Severus in class and said that talent must run in his family, and when Severus had asked about ingredients for love potions, the teacher had chortled and winked, hinting that he would soon find out the name of the lucky lady with whom his student wished to share Amortentia.

Severus does not allow himself to haunt the older boys' dormitory, the fifth floor corridor or other locations where he knows he will see Lucius, but he does take routes through the castle that allow him to pass places where he knows a chance meeting could plausibly occur. He is surprised, then, when he enters the Potions classroom during the third week back at school hoping to ask Professor Slughorn a question about healing draughts, only to find a blond, handsomely dressed figure there waiting for him instead. "Finally I have a free evening," announces Lucius. His expression is relieved, as if he has solved some problem that had been weighing on him, and his grin is cheerful with a hint of mischief. "Are you busy? If not, I thought that perhaps you could help me with something in the prefect's bathroom..."

Though Severus has been peevish as well as unhappy, and had even told himself that he might decline an invitation from the standoffish Lucius just to teach him a lesson about taking people's feelings for granted, he finds himself returning the smile with a growing sense of joy. "I'm not busy," he says, dismissing from his mind his promise to meet Regulus. "I'd be happy to help you with your _something_."

The tub has already been filled when he arrives, though to Severus' surprise the water is devoid of any of the magical bubbles, foams or fizzing potions that change its color and make bathing here such a delightful experience. After undressing, he trails his fingers in the clear pool and is surprised to find that it is also quite chilly. "Aren't we going to freeze in here?" he asks Lucius, who is shaking out his hair, watched by the mermaid in the painting on the wall.

"It will feel warmer in a few minutes," Lucius tells him with a mysterious smile, making Severus wonder whether he is planning to do something naughty like pee in the tub. "But before we do anything, I want to prepare you."

"Does one of these taps make some kind of lubrication?" asks Severus, only half-joking. The slippery, soapy foam may be divine for wanking on the platform, but soap can sting internally and the prefect's bathroom seems equipped for every sort of pleasure, even some that one would expect to be forbidden to students, like champagne bath bubbles.

"The silver and onyx ones produce wonderful sweet oils, but we need something that will last underwater for awhile." Severus shivers softly; he had been hoping that Lucius would fuck him in the tub, with his upper body cushioned on one of those enormous bubble-floats perhaps, stroking him until he pumped out come into the warm foam. "Here, lie down on your belly." He does so, feeling the cool tiles against his skin as he bends his knees up. The tip of Lucius' wand touches between his buttocks, just grazing the sensitive pucker; Lucius utters, "Imbuo!" and the area feels suddenly hot and slick inside and out.

"There," Lucius says happily, pressing the very tip of the wand inside Severus who opens for it effortlessly. He feels his heart pound at the perilous stimulation, wondering what it might be like to be fucked by something as hard and unyielding as a wand, which could be charmed to pulse or vibrate or turn hot and cold as it prods in and out. "I've always wanted to fuck completely underwater. I've done it in midair, with Wingardium Leviosa, but that isn't the same as being surrounded by liquid. Now, I know you've been feeling neglected, but I have a special treat for you."

"I haven't been feeling neglected," objects Severus halfheartedly, gasping as the wand is withdrawn and trailed down the backs of his balls, leaving him aching for more. "I know you've been busy..."

"I've been _scheming_." Pulling him upright on his knees, Lucius grins at him, and Severus is more certain than ever that he was right -- Lucius had been testing not only his young lover's restraint but his own. "Look."

From a pocket in his discarded robe, he pulls a handful of a slimy, dead-looking plant. The round worm-like leaves are shiny but more gray than green, and when Severus touches one it feels like a cold squid tentacle. "It's gillyweed," Lucius explains. "It will make you grow gills."

"You mean you want to fuck _completely_ underwater?" inquires Severus, very slightly nervous and also vaguely disappointed, for he will not be able to see Lucius' expressions nor hear his sounds if their heads are below the surface.

"Don't make that face before you've tried it. If we were by the lake we could chew a wad of this and stay underwater for hours, but the water from these taps contains too many impurities -- it will make you sick if you try to stay below for too long." Severus wonders how Lucius knows this, though he can imagine Lucius submerging and pleasuring himself, even lurking at the bottom and watching in amusement while others use the tub.

With careful fingers, Lucius plucks several leaves from the clump and hands them to Severus. They feel clammy and rubbery in his hand, like flobberworms. "Chew them before you swallow," admonishes Lucius, picking off several leaves for himself. "You're going to get quite breathless, as if your lungs won't work right, then you're going to feel as if someone has sliced your neck on both sides. As soon as that happens, duck underwater and open your mouth. Some people panic and pass out, which can lead to a terrible headache later when it wears off. Don't fight it -- it's quite enjoyable."

"But I won't be able to hear you," says Severus, a little sullenly.

"You'll be able to hear me a bit, gurgling and splashing. And you'll be able to see me -- your vision will be quite clear. We'll be floating! My hair will be waving around your head. You'll be able to move your legs into positions that are impossible to hold on a bed, I won't have to balance my weight and I can touch your cock and your nipples all at once. When you come in the water it will spread out all over me. It will be very intimate. Doesn't that sound worth trying?"

Blushing that Lucius knows what he will want so well, Severus nods a bit. He puts a hand over the side and runs his fingers through the water, still surprised that Lucius has made it so much cooler than usual. "Your body will adjust as soon as the gillyweed takes effect," he promises upon seeing Severus react. "Oh! And your fingers will become webbed -- it takes a bit of getting used to, but you can still use your hands. It's quite remarkable to touch your cock with that extra flesh."

A wicked grin, then Lucius lifts a gillyweed leaf, slurping it down as a snake would swallow its prey. Severus tries to do the same, chokes on the leaf and stuffs them all in his mouth at once, chewing the rubbery clump as he slips into the water up to his waist. It is quite cold, raising goosebumps over his entire body and making the muscles in his belly contract. His throat does not want to swallow the mashed leaves, yet he forces them down, trying not to gag. A moment later Lucius has executed a graceful dive into the tub and as he comes up gasping at the chill, Severus' chest, too, begins to feel as though it is being compressed.

"Down!" Lucius calls to him when sudden sharp pain assaults his neck, as if someone has drawn swords across either side below his ears. The ache in Severus' chest is growing intolerable yet he cannot even cry out. And suddenly Lucius shoves him below the surface, into darkness, into a blinding moment of terror as his mouth fills.

Then he can breathe again...he is breathing, taking in water through his mouth and passing it through the slits in his throat, his unnecessary lungs closing over, his head as clear as his sight. The underwater vision reveals details of the tub he has never noticed from above, dozens of little tiled dragons and mermaids, and a spigot near the bottom creating a current in the now-temperate water. When he takes a stroke, swimming easily toward the surface, he is shocked to see his fingers, which have turned greenish and become connected like those of a frog.

Breaking into air, he feels the pressure in his chest begin at once and his vision blurs. Ducking back under the water, he looks down at his newly amphibian feet and does a flip, something that has always been difficult for him before. Now it is effortless, and not far from him, he sees Lucius diving, twisting through the water like a porpoise to his side. Wrapping their arms together, for it is difficult to hold hands with the webbing between their fingers, they move in a slow circle that feels like dancing -- not dancing as Severus has ever experienced it, with all the awkwardness and clumsiness of trying to keep track of his feet, but dancing as he has imagined it, free-floating and spirited.

Lucius looks beautiful and otherworldly underwater with his hair fanning about his face like a pale cloud. Though Severus knows that real mermaids are dark, eerie creatures, the golden man looks more like the painting on the wall above the tub, and when he pulls Severus close to kiss him openmouthed, Severus thinks that the legends of mermaids told by Muggle sailors must have arisen from seeing someone like Lucius gleaming below the waves. Lucius' skin feels very different beneath newly webbed fingertips and his body is delightfully responsive, rippling and slithering with every touch. Sound is, indeed, not necessary, for Severus can sense changes in the water currents themselves from every pleasurable vibration.

The touch of Lucius' strange new hands on his own skin is a surprise as well. In certain places it seems to have grown tougher, thicker -- his back, for instance, and his longer, stronger legs, which can easily flip himself and Lucius over in the water as they embrace. But certain spots are delightfully sensitive, like the delicate skin of his throat between his gills, and when Lucius lowers his mouth to suck there like some kind of subterranean serpent, Severus' entire body feels electrified, as if the water is sizzling dangerously all around him, sending tingling currents through his body.

Lucius spins Severus away through the water, catches his hand and reels him in as if they are ice skating together in an effortless spiral. When he comes to a halt, his back is resting against Lucius' chest and he can feel Lucius' stiff prick prodding his buttocks. Remembering that they cannot remain under the water for long, he spreads his legs, a little sorry not to be able to spend more time exploring this strange underwater world. Lucius had said that in the lake, the gillyweed would let them stay below for longer, and Severus determines to try it when the weather is better suited to swimming outdoors.

For now he lets Lucius nuzzle the hair that floats weightlessly from his scalp, dark and flat where Lucius' is fair and bright, but equally buoyant underwater. The rough pads of Lucius' webbed fingers brush across his chest as Lucius tugs him closer, stimulating him in places not usually so sensitive to such a simple touch. When the cool lips brush again just below his gills, it is as if Lucius is kissing him on the mouth, so powerful is the reaction through his body. Again Lucius turns him about until they are face to face, giving him another of those openmouthed kisses that require Severus to stop taking in water for the length of the contact. He is lightheaded when it stops, as if he has been holding his breath...which, he supposes, he has.

It will not be feasible for Lucius to prepare him any further with his fingers, for the thin panels of skin between them make such penetration impossible. But his insides still feel hot and slippery from the spell Lucius used, and he thinks that it will not be painful if Lucius enters him now. _Fuck me_, he thinks, staring into Lucius' eyes, which are nearly the same pale blue as the water around them.

_I'm going to fuck you._ It is as if Lucius has spoken, though his lips have not even moved. The emanation from his mind travels through the clear water like a current. Raising his legs, Severus wraps his feet around Lucius' back and tries to slide himself down on the prick that prods against his hole, nudging uncomfortably into his balls before Lucius changes the angle and pushes into his body.

Though there is no tearing pain -- the spell has ensured that -- the feeling is bizarre and unpleasant, as if his body cannot adjust to the difference in pressure so far underwater. Lucius thrusts gently at first yet the motion is enough to propel them through the water. Severus is acutely embarrassed as air bubbles escape from him when Lucius withdraws, yet there is laughter in Lucius' eyes and the strain inside eases. He relaxes, enjoying the feeling of Lucius carrying him, driving them slowly from one side of the tub toward the other, showing him the pleasure that he can experience in this strange new body.

Urging him to lean back, Lucius bends at an angle that would be impossible without the transformation that has made him flexible as an eel and brushes his mouth over the head of Severus' prick. He cannot close his lips to suck, for he would be unable to take in water for oxygen, but he teases Severus with an unnaturally long amphibian tongue, peering up to smile at him. The sense of the room swimming is less pronounced than usual with the currents in the water rippling between them, yet in Lucius' eyes Severus can see his recollections of the first time he fucked him, the intense, possessive pleasure. _Still mine_, Lucius is rejoicing, thrusting harder, flipping them over in the water. Severus feels lightheaded, as if this is a dream, and when Lucius begins to stroke his prick in time with his thrusts with his long webbed fingers, he thinks he could die from the pleasure.

At this exotic angle it seems to be taking him longer to come than any previous time he had Lucius inside him, particularly with so much stimulation all over, and his heart seems to be pounding harder again, making the beats pulse in his head and groin. The dizziness increases, adding to the intensity, though there is a strange new feeling -- an ache at the sides of his neck -- and his mouth feels strangely full...Severus swallows, realizes that he is now gulping water instead of breathing it. He senses momentary concern, a frustrating hesitation, and thinks _Don't stop._

The water has grown chilly around him and Lucius' fingers on his prick feel like human fingers again, yet it does not matter, for the most powerful orgasm of his life is building, as his eyes blur and he feels Lucius throb inside him and he shudders, his lungs burning, throat searing, the world going dark. _You're mine too._ His balls clench against the cold, against the lack of air, pumping empty through his prick which is exploding like his head...

Then there is nothing but darkness, thicker and blacker than the inside of a barrow, drawing him down.

"...Severus. Open your eyes."

The pain in his head is intense. Somewhere off in the distance, there is light, but he cannot bear to look at it, it will scald his eyes...

"Severus. Open your eyes. Please."

Oh, but he knows that voice. That sounds like Lucius' voice, though not as Severus has ever heard it. Lucius sounds unhappy. Lucius sounds...afraid. And despite the ache in his head and throat and chest and limbs, Severus does open his eyes.

The Headmaster is bent over him, fingers hovering above his forehead, chanting something that is drawing the pain out of him, making it vanish into the air. When he sees Severus watching him, he looks deep into his eyes. "My dear boy, I thought for a moment that we had lost you," he says quietly. "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm going to be sick," replies Severus hoarsely, recognizing the feeling only as it overwhelms him. Dumbledore rolls him quickly to his side as his body convulses and water pours from his mouth, gallons of water, more than he imagined his belly could hold, surely he swallowed half the tub...

When the heaving stops he is trembling uncontrollably. Strong hands help him to sit up and something warm is wrapped around him -- he is in Lucius' arms on the floor of the prefect's bathroom, bundled in a towel.

"What happened?" he asks faintly.

Dumbledore kneels again, touching his face, tilting his chin to examine him. "I was hoping that you could tell me," he says.

"You drowned," answers Lucius with a catch in his voice. "Don't you remember, the gillyweed? You only chewed a leaf or two. I didn't realize that you were in trouble -- I guess you got disoriented. I climbed out and I couldn't see you, then I dove back in but you were at the bottom. When I pulled you out you weren't breathing, so I used my wand to call for help and Professor Dumbledore responded..."

Severus' head feels as if it is filled with soap bubbles but his memory is perfectly clear up until the point where he must have lost consciousness. Obviously Lucius has already concocted a story for the staff...feeling the older Slytherin squeeze his arms, he nods, trying not to lean back too obviously into the solid comfort of the body behind him. "It's my fault," he croaks. "I made up a spell to get into the prefect's bathroom. I took the gillyweed from Professor Slughorn's office...he's been tutoring me, he lets me use his ingredients..."

"I have heard that you have an exceptional aptitude for Potions," Dumbledore replies. He is still looking at Severus, checking his nose and throat to be certain that he is not injured, yet Severus has the impression that the Headmaster is studying Lucius even more closely, though he never even glances up at him. "Lucius, why did you not confiscate the gillyweed?"

"He was going to," Severus adds hastily, hoping that this will not contradict anything in Lucius' story. "But I'd already started chewing it. I didn't really understand how it worked. I think Malfoy thought it would be safer in here than if I'd gone down to the lake, without anyone else around."

"Is that how it happened, Severus?" _Is there something else you wish to tell me?_ Too late he realizes that Dumbledore has looked into his eyes, and he is so weak, it would take no effort to read the lie. It isn't fair, fumes Severus, that Dumbledore can just _invade_, the sneakiest and slipperiest of all, when he is so distrustful of the Slytherins...

With all his concentration Severus thinks _Protego!_ at the Headmaster. And then something extraordinary happens. He feels his mind seal closed, as if he has enclosed it in one of the bubbles that seem to be clouding his focus. Dumbledore's probing stare brushes past it harmlessly, leaving Severus' thoughts untouched.

The Headmaster regards him in surprise, yet rather than seeming impressed, there is a kind of sadness in his face. "I gather that Potions are not your only extraordinary skill," he says quietly. "You have great natural talent as an Occlumens. But be careful with your choices, Severus. There are no easy paths to power, nor to happiness."

Now there is no doubt that Dumbledore knows everything that transpired in the prefect's bathroom. Severus' mind may be closed, but Lucius' is not; from his position on the floor, even without being able to look directly at him, he can sense the older boy's fear and the confused emotions beneath it. _I told you that you loved me_, thinks Severus tiredly, watching Dumbledore raise his head for the first time to look at the Head Boy.

"And you, Lucius. I trust that you will be more vigilant in the future?"

"Yes, sir," replies Lucius at once, bowing his head and letting his damp hair brush Severus' face, though whether this is to hide anger or demonstrate regret, Severus cannot tell. "I'm sure that Severus did not mean to abuse any privileges. Nor did I. You won't find him in here again..."

"I believe you may find that some privileges, once granted, are not so easy to revoke." The Headmaster's eyes return to Severus. "You are no longer a child. When you choose to embark upon adult experiences, you must accept adult responsibilities."

"Yes, sir," repeats Severus in what he hopes is much the same tone that Lucius used. Dumbledore's words seem odd to him, for it sounds as though the Headmaster is not insisting that they stop everything they have been doing while at Hogwarts. In fact, he does not seem to be suggesting that they have done anything heinous, other than taking this immoderate risk in the water. Lucius had said that love was always Dumbledore's weakness. Is it possible that the Headmaster understands?

"Lucius, I would like you to take Severus to the hospital wing." Severus flinches, for Madam Pomfrey will surely know from examining him what they have been doing in the water, but Lucius shakes his head imperceptibly and Severus understands that there must be a way to disguise it. "Tell her to have a look at you too, just to be safe. And then, I'm afraid, some detention must be in order. Five scrolls on the dangers of misuse of gillyweed from each of you. I shall have Mr. Filch supervise. In addition, this bathroom will have to be cleaned. Perhaps early tomorrow, before your classes?"

"Yes, sir." While they watch Dumbledore get to his feet, he looks down at them as if he will say something more, but he only shakes his head slightly with the previous expression of faint sadness. Then he leans down to help Lucius heave Severus to his feet, where he stands shaking until Lucius accios a heavy robe from the corner of the bathroom and turns to hide Severus from the departing Headmaster until he has dropped the towel and bundled himself in the warm velvet.

"Just let me finish dressing," says Lucius, who is wearing his outer robe with nothing beneath. "I threw it on as I sent the summons. Can you imagine facing him stark naked..."

The effort to nod makes Severus sway, and Lucius catches him, pulling him close. "I knew the gillyweed was wearing off," he admits hoarsely. "But I didn't stop. I swear to you, I won't take such a risk again..."

Severus lifts his head to look at him, into his eyes. Even in his weakened condition, it takes very little effort to push into Lucius' mind, where he sees scenes that shock him. A little blond boy is crying over a mangled dog while an older man tells him to come away...a slightly older boy is standing in a group of people in fancy clothes while a casket is lowered into the ground...a teenager is standing in the secret dungeon room of the Malfoy mansion, his shaking hands opening a box marked with a skull. Then Severus sees himself, lying on a tiled floor with his eyes and mouth open...he can hear Lucius' voice, very nearly sobbing, "I'm sorry, Severus, come back, please, I can't lose you..."

And it hits Severus like a stunning spell that he _drowned_ \-- he very nearly died. He came close to touching the undiscovered secrets that obsess Lucius and returned, yet Lucius has not asked him a single question about the experience -- Lucius is instead apologizing to him for having gone too far. Though it all should be frightening, it is strangely exhilarating.

The room reforms around him standing in Lucius' arms. The man drops his eyes but not before Severus sees that there are tears in them. "Here, sit down so I can dress," he says gruffly. "Will you be able to walk to the hospital wing? I could get someone else to help..."

"I think I can walk." Privately Severus knows that Lucius may practically have to carry him, but he has no fear. Lucius did not mean for him to drown. Lucius will fall with him rather than letting him collapse. He is paler than usual tugging his clothing into place, and his eyes are as wild as his hair. "Listen, I know you didn't mean for that to happen. I'm not sure Dumbledore believed the story, though."

"I'm sure he didn't, but he can't prove anything. Not that that would have stopped him from having me expelled if you..." Turning, Lucius steps close and impulsively puts his arms around Severus again. "You're very strong, though," he whispers rather shakily. "The way you woke up and covered for me, just like that. I won't forget this. I'll make it up to you."

Pushing aside an urge to hush Lucius and hold him like a child, Severus nods. "Dumbledore said that we have to clean the bathroom," he reminds Lucius. "Tomorrow morning. We'll have it all to ourselves again."

Lucius is silent for a moment, hugging him, but there is already a change in his breathing, and when he speaks there is a kind of happy wonder in his voice. "I'll get up early and clean the bathroom," he promises. "I'll have it ready by the time you get here. And then you can have me any way you want."

_Like this_, thinks Severus. It is enough to have Lucius just like this, focused for the moment completely on him, with passion making his eyes blaze. It will not last, he knows, for Lucius will leave this place and his love of power and prestige will return. But Severus _is_ strong, and now Lucius understands that. What is between them will not disappear like a temporary pair of gills. This is real.


End file.
